Midwest Market Reports

By Scott Bluhm, Newmark Zimmer Since 2016, the Kansas City industrial market has been on a hot streak. We observed more opportunities and increased user activity. There have been consistent years of record positive space absorption and the delivery of Class A buildings, whether speculative or build-to-suit.  The peak of that hot streak was in 2022. The year concluded with records in positive absorption, vacancy and rental growth. By the end of 2022, Kansas City became the 15th-largest industrial market in terms of square footage, surpassing Seattle. Significant statistics for 2022: •Over 16 million square feet of positive absorption •A vacancy low of 3.6 percent •A 10.6 percent increase in rental rates The year 2023 has been unique due to economic conditions and uncertainty. New speculative construction starts are down approximately 70 percent, with around 2.5 million square feet breaking ground in 2023. Most of the speculative buildings delivering in 2023 were projects that began construction in 2022.  Annual net absorption has decreased to 2.5 million square feet in the first and second quarters. For reference, the fourth quarter of 2022 saw a record-setting net absorption of approximately 7.3 million square feet, and the third quarter of 2022 had 3.2 …

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By Mary Lamie, Bi-State Development The industrial real estate market continues to show its strength in the St. Louis region as new investments by industrial developers hold steady.  Coming off a record year in 2022, with more than 7 million square feet of completions entering the market and 6.5 million square feet absorbed, the region’s new construction has leveled off a bit, with 1.1 million square feet of industrial space delivered so far in 2023 and 3.6 million square feet of space still under construction, according to the latest numbers from Colliers. Speculative construction rates remain high, with 65 percent of construction since 2019 being speculative builds. This growth in industrial construction is being fueled by national and regional developers who believe St. Louis has the industrial activity levels needed to drive construction investments. Data included in the “St. Louis Regional Industrial Real Estate Market Indicators & Workforce Report,” released by the St. Louis Regional Freightway in May, shows the St.Louis region now has 182 million square feet of space available.  According to the report, the region offers the largest amount of manufacturing space available on the market compared to other Midwestern cities, along with one of the lowest triple …

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By Tricia Pitchford and Amy Senn, Mid-America Real Estate A strong regional economy continues to propel the retail real estate market in Minneapolis heading into the fall. Unemployment remains lower than the national average, though up from last year’s remarkable sub-2 percent. New jobs are being created at a nice clip. At the same time, retail real estate space is tight, with limited new construction. Well-located spaces are being re-tenanted quickly. The same is generally true for B and C locations. Rents are flat to increasing. Higher construction costs continue to hamper tenant expansion. Although the macroeconomy is slowing, consumers are proving resilient, with a large appetite (pun intended) for quick-service restaurants and personal services, in particular. Where’s the most action? Suburban trade areas are seeing most of the activity across the metro area. Maple Grove, Woodbury, Edina and Roseville are among the strongest submarkets. A couple of urban trade areas, namely the North Loop warehouse district and Northeast Minneapolis, stand out for their growing appeal as arts, entertainment and dining districts. (Yes, we have hipsters in the Twin Cities.) Generally infill and redevelopment opportunities are more time-consuming and costly to execute than ground-up development, but that’s not stopping the …

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By David Berglund, JLL The Minneapolis-St. Paul industrial real estate market continues to show strength as tenant demand and leasing activity keep vacancies low and absorption steady. In the second quarter of 2023, there were more than 4 million square feet of leasing and 523,641 square feet of net absorption, which pushed vacancy rates down slightly to 3.6 percent.  In addition, roughly 800,000 square feet of speculative development was removed from the market. Currently, there is just 2.7 square foot of available space for every square foot of tenant demand. Year-to-date absorption was nearly 2 million square feet, led by the Northwest submarket with nearly 1.3 million square feet of that total since January. The Northwest submarket has been leading in absorption in four of the past six quarters. Asking rents increased to $6.21 per square foot and first-year rents continued to climb to $9.13 per square foot, reflecting an 11.5 percent growth over 2022. With very low vacancy and limited supply coming, we are continuing to see favorable conditions for landlords in the Twin Cites industrial market. New high-water marks for rents will likely continue into 2024. Investment sales, however, tapered off significantly as the impact of several incremental …

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By Jared Shapiro, Marcus & Millichap The commercial retail market is a consistently evolving landscape that plays a vital role in shaping our economy. With consecutive months of broad growth, health and convenience remain a priority for shoppers. With the combination of more households planning seasonal trips and underlying tenant demand remaining extraordinarily strong, the commercial retail sector has become the “darling of the industry.”  As seen in the June meeting, the Federal Reserve took a rate hike hiatus for the first time since March 2022, which should lead to some stabilizing of the capital markets. Is the retail investment market poised for a growth and boom cycle? In short, the answer is yes. Currently, there is a lack of for-sale inventory on the market for multi-tenant shopping centers, which is creating a scenario where we are consistently seeing multiple qualified offers on deals that we are seeing in the market.  As we are getting deeper into the summer months, the flow of 1031 exchange money will continue to grow. This will be a positive element for the single-tenant net-lease sector, as it has historically seen the most aggressive buyers of triple-net deals in 1031 exchanges.   When viewed from …

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By John Cassidy and Calvin Gunn, Lee & Associates If you love a good groundbreaking photo — full of shiny shovels, hard hats and smiling development teams — you may be disappointed this year, for all the best reasons. With Chicago’s most recent wave of speculative industrial projects currently being delivered, the market now actually has space to offer industrial tenants — a refreshing change from the past few years.  With construction costs and interest rates continuing to rise and credit availability shrinking, many developers with ties to Chicago are pausing new projects as exit cap rates are becoming more difficult to predict. At the same time, market fundamentals are starting to cool from the pandemic-era eruption of demand. The good news: Chicago’s industrial market may be down from the clouds, but it’s still historically quite healthy. Vacancy rate in perspective  According to Lee & Associates of Illinois’ second-quarter industrial snapshot, construction deliveries caused the Chicago industrial vacancy rate to tick upward for the second consecutive quarter. However, a 3.68 percent vacant market is still considered a historically low vacancy environment. As a comparison, that vacancy rate measured about 12 percent at the end of 2009 and 6.6 percent in …

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By Jamie Dunford, CBRE Outside of office product, Cleveland and Northeast Ohio haven’t historically been of interest for most out-of-town multifamily developers and investors. They viewed the region as a tertiary or secondary market with a declining population and a lackluster economy.  Until recently, urban living in the central business district (CBD) and surrounding neighborhoods was rare — Cleveland was a commuter city with a strong office market from the 90s until the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) in 2008. At one point in time, Northeast Ohio boasted one of the highest concentrations of Fortune 500 companies with headquarters or other office space in the region, and the CBD had the largest job hub in the state of Ohio.  Most office buildings in the CBD were owned by institutional capital or national developers. However, the GFC vastly altered this landscape as unemployment rose, companies left or downsized, and many office assets went back to the lender.  This left an oversupply of office product in the market, and the older buildings suffered the most. However, this created a market opportunity that Cleveland developers seized, and the city eventually became a national leader in converting historic office assets to multifamily while taking advantage …

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By Scott Olson, Skogman Commercial Despite a derecho, a pandemic, inflation, supply chain issues and a possible recession, Cedar Rapids continues its rapid growth as evidenced by the ranking by “American Growth Project 2023” as a top 15 fastest-growing mid-size U.S. city. But, its other national rankings are just as impressive: • 23rd-Best Run City in U.S. (wallethub.com, 2023) • Top 100 Best Places to Live in America (Livability, 2023) • 23rd-Best Place to Raise a Family (wallethub.com, 2023) • 13th-Best City to Buy a House (niche.com, 2023) • Ranked No. 21 of Cities with Lowest Cost of Living (Business Insider, 2023) • A Cleanest U.S. City by Short-Term Particle Pollution (American Lung Association, 2023) • Two Nationally Ranked Medical Centers: St. Luke’s Hospital and Mercy Medical Center (PINC Al/Fortune and Newsweek, 2023) • Top 50 Best City for Jobs in America (wallethub.com, 2023) • No. 22 Safest City in America (wallethub.com, 2022) • Best Tasting Drinking Water in Iowa (Iowa Section, American Water Works 2022) In addition to these rankings, Cedar Rapids is also continuing to make major progress on recovery from previous national disasters: • 2008/2016 historic floods are resulting in the $750 million flood control system making …

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By Anthony Sanna, Integra Realty Resources The commercial real estate (CRE) market is facing a time of uncertainty and anxiety as we move further into 2023. A variety of factors are contributing to investor sentiment being low, including the threat of higher interest rates impacting commercial loans, fears of a declining CRE market, and concerns about recessionary pressures, inflation and a liquidity crisis currently taking shape. The question on everyone’s mind is where values are going and what trends we can expect in the coming months. Signs of a softening market National data analytics firms are already reporting a 10 percent value decline across most asset classes, except for industrial real estate. While this indicates there is downward pressure on pricing, it’s important to remember that appraisal data is somewhat backward-looking and may lag behind current pricing trends. Additionally, tracking recent transactions from six to nine months ago may not represent the boots on the ground experience happening at this very moment. Admittedly, appraisers are rear-view mirror-focused (tracking transactions) while the actual market is windshield-focused (future transactions).  Despite this, recent examples in daily work indicate a downward pricing trend. Recent purchase contracts have been re-traded and amended, often with lower …

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By Anthony Armbruster, Colliers Although converting former office buildings to multifamily properties is by no means a new practice, conversions have been on the rise in recent years due to the changing work environment and office landscape. While the COVID-19 pandemic has started to fade away in many peoples’ minds, several of the changes in the work environment during that time have not.  Many formerly in-office employees continue to work from home or have hybrid schedules post-pandemic. Additionally, tenants who are moving into new office spaces have shown a preference for smaller, more efficiently laid out, amenity-rich and suburban Class A office spaces.  These changing consumer preferences have resulted in higher vacancies and fewer new tenants for older downtown office buildings than before the pandemic. Consequently, many of these older buildings are being converted into residential spaces, exemplifying the trend. An office building may be considered for a residential conversion when it is no longer economically feasible to continue running the building as such. However, not every office building at the end of its economically useful life is a suitable candidate for a residential conversion. Factors such as a building’s layout, location, age and cost of conversion play the most …

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