The Dallas-Fort Worth area has widened its lead as the country’s top industrial building market.
More than 50 million square feet of new warehouse, distribution and logistics building were under construction in the D-FW area at the end of 2021, according to a new report from Cushman & Wakefield.
The Pennsylvania market was second with about 34 million square feet of warehouse building, according to the commercial property firm report.
The D-FW area accounted for almost 10% of the nationwide more than 560 million square feet of industrial space being built.
“We are seeing unprecedented low vacancy and incredibly high demand for industrial space across the United States,” Carolyn Salzer, Americas Head of Logistics & Industrial Research for Cushman & Wakefield, said in the report. “Demand is outpacing supply by a wide margin — almost 50 percent — and new leasing activity totaled 879.9 million square feet, a new record. “
Along with D-FW and Pennsylvania’s Interstate 81 corridor, other warehouse building hot spots were in the Atlanta area and southern California.
“Developers are setting new records on the pipeline yet falling short of meeting demand for space when it comes to deliveries due to pandemic related issues, particularly for warehousing and e-commerce facilities,” said Salzer. “Until significant new supply is able to be delivered at the rate of demand, we expect tenants to continue to struggle finding the space they need. The market is as competitive as it has ever been.”
The Houston area led the nation in 2021 net warehouse leasing with almost 24 million square feet of space absorbed.
In the D-FW area, net warehouse leasing totaled more than 19 million square feet last year.
North Texas developers in 2021 started dozens of new warehouse projects to take advantage of the growing demand for distribution and storage space.
Leasing is coming mainly from e-commerce, logistics and consumer products firms.
