EL PASO, TX-Although the reported violence along the Texas-Mexico border has intensified the region’s recession-driven slump, companies continue to make long-term industrial commitments here.

Industrial leasing activity is up on both sides of the border, with El Paso leading the way and Cd. Juarez reversing a three-year negative trend, according to Christian Perez Giese of CBRE’s El Paso office. “In May alone, CBRE’s El Paso/Cd. Juarez office completed lease transactions for industrial properties totaling more than 400,000 square feet, including 82,000 square feet for Mack Technologies,” he says.

Today, El Paso’s industrial real estate market is comprised of 54.4 million square feet stretching from Santa Teresa, NM in the west to Socorro, TX, on the east. The market recorded 725,000 square feet of gross industrial absorption during the first quarter – a 46% increase from the quarterly average in 2010, according to CBRE. The market ended the first quarter 2011 with a vacancy rate of 13.9%, a decline from a high of 15.8% in mid-2010.