Though there was a slight decline in Las Vegas’ overall industrial market activity in the first half of 2016, the remainder of the year will finish strong as the region continues to see significant expansion. Despite aggressive market conditions, demand continued to outpace new supply during the third quarter of this year, while asking rates rose and large distribution centers dominated market activity. Demand for industrial space in the Las Vegas market increased during the third quarter, with 787,582 square feet of net absorption, bringing the total net absorption year-to-date to more than 2 million square feet. New completions totaled 642,571 square feet and vacancy rates decreased to 4.4 percent, the lowest since the first quarter of 2007. The average asking triple-net lease rate climbed to $0.62 per square foot, per month, the highest since the fourth quarter of 2009. There are currently nine industrial projects under construction throughout the Las Vegas Valley, totaling nearly 4.8 million square feet. New construction activity has been well above the long-term average since 2015, and will continue to outpace historical levels through 2017. The increase in construction activity has largely been fueled by a combination of a lack of available large bulk distribution …
Market Reports
The Reno industrial market continues to grow at a steady pace. Numerous developers are building new speculative warehouse/distribution facilities in many of the submarkets in Reno, Sparks and nearby outlying areas. With an industrial base of more than 80 million square feet and a vacancy rate of 8.2 percent (which continues to recede), the region is experiencing a healthy demand for space ranging from 50,000 square feet (divisibility) up to 150,000 square feet. Demand exceeds supply for product of this size. Current rental rates have steadily pushed upward over the past 18 months. Depending on the location of the business parks and its proximity to Interstate 80, the major east-west trucking artery, or I-580, the quoted asking rental rates range from about $4.20 per square foot, per year, up to $5.04 for the aforementioned divisibility ranges. New speculative Class A industrial product in the Reno market offers 32’ to 36’ clear height, as well as ESFR fire sprinkler technology, state-of-the-art LED high bay lighting, fiber optics communications, cross-dock configurations, ultra-wide column bay spacing and ample trailer parking onsite. Panattoni Development built Red Rock 200, which includes a 750,000-square-foot, built-to-suit fulfillment center for Petco, as well as a 200,000-square-foot speculative distribution …
The Southern Nevada industrial market has continuously seen improvement through the second quarter of 2015 with a positive absorption of 878,151 square feet. The overall vacancy rate followed suit and decreased to 8 percent – down 2.1 points from the 12 previous months, which ended at 10.1 percent. The asking lease rates also increased to an average of $6.38 – up almost 10 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014 when it stood at $6.16. A new addition to the healthy market is the growth in new projects that are either planned or under construction. There is an estimated 2.4 million square feet currently under construction, with deliveries anticipated from the third quarter of 2015 through the second quarter of 2016. Big box distribution demand continues to climb, and most developers now believe “if you build it, they will come.” One of the largest deliveries planned for the third quarter of this year is Prologis’ 3700 Bay Lake Trail. Bay Lake was originally planned as a 464,203-square-foot, speculative project. The entire development was leased by Cushman & Wakefield to the Global Equipment Company (GEC), a subsidiary of Systemax, prior to the official groundbreaking, however. This deal was an expansion for …
The Las Vegas retail market is transitioning from recovery to stability. Based on CoStar’s second-quarter report, the overall vacancy rate was 9.9 percent, a slight decrease from the 10 percent experienced at the end of the second quarter of 2014. The decrease is impressive considering the 2 million square feet in net absorption that occurred during this same period. Rental rates have continued to average around $1.30 per square foot, per month for the past 2.5 years, although we are hearing about newer centers achieving impressive rate increases. There was 822,512 square feet of retail space under construction at the end of the second quarter of 2015. Ikea is the largest retail project currently under construction in Southern Nevada, which is expected to open next summer. The second largest project is Tivoli Village’s 117,516-square-foot expansion. Restoration Hardware also signed a lease this quarter for 77,000 square feet at Tivoli. It is expected to take up occupy during the first quarter of 2016. Though private investors dominate the market, we are seeing more institutional investors who are interested in acquiring newly stabilized product. Cap rates have continued to decline, averaging 6.53 percent for 2015, compared to a 2014 average of 6.99 …
The Las Vegas office market continues to recover and stabilize, capping off 2014 with the 12th consecutive quarter of positive net absorption. Initially slow to recover following the recession, the area’s rebound has recently quickened. The market has an unemployment rate of 7.1 percent, with 2014 being the first year since 2008 to see a rate below 8 percent. Office-related jobs represented 20 percent of the workforce, second only to hospitality, proving the office market is an important part of the area’s growth and vitality. Class A office space along the I-215 Beltway currently shows strong activity. Las Vegas is home to two suburbs that historically were among the fastest-growing communities in the nation: Green Valley in the southeast and Summerlin in the west. Initially built as a means to connect the populations of these communities, the Beltway now extends around the city, connecting to I-15 in the northern valley. Notable recent developments along the Beltway include Krausz Companies’ and WGH Partners’ Gramercy, a mixed-use office, retail and multifamily project in the southwest that added 175,000 square feet of Class A office space in the third quarter of 2014, and The Howard Hughes Corporation’s Downtown Summerlin, a mixed-use project that …
It is great to be in Las Vegas and witness the city’s strong recovery from the economic lows of a few years ago. Exciting projects like the $500-million LINQ entertainment and retail promenade, the 1.6-million-square-foot Downtown Summerlin lifestyle center and the market’s first IKEA, now under development, are filling the region with promise. Las Vegas added more than 25,000 jobs between 2013 and 2014, a 3.3 percent increase, representing the third highest growth rate in the country during that time. As opposed to the previous economic boom that was largely driven by construction growth, the job growth in this recovery has been evenly spread across several sectors like general services (retail), professional/business, education, healthcare and leisure/travel. Las Vegas also hit a milestone in 2014 when it reached a record-setting 41.1 million visitors for the year. Those visitors included 5.2 million conventioneers, the highest total since 2008. As the Las Vegas economy continues to expand, retail is leading the pack with taxable sales that have already increased an astounding 29.4 percent from the recession low, including an 8.1 percent year-over-year increase in the past 12 months. Total taxable spending in the region is near its highest levels in history, reaching $36.2 …
The health club tenant is a very hot category throughout the nation. This is especially proving to be the case in the Las Vegas and Henderson markets. Two of the best examples of this are Village Square Shopping Center and Canyon Lakes Center, located on the northwest and southwest corners of Fort Apache and Sahara in the Summerlin submarket. Just three years ago, neither center had any type of fitness use. In the past 18 months, however, Village Square has leased to Sumits Yoga, a 5160-square-foot hot yoga center, and Orange Theory Fitness, a 2,915-square-foot fitness franchise out of Florida. Across the street to the east, Canyon Lakes has just signed a lease with Body Heat Pilates and Yoga for 5,332 square feet. It is also working with a martial arts tenant for another space. Both centers report they have interest from larger boot camps, ballet-based workouts and Pilates-type tenants. This example repeats itself throughout the entire Las Vegas Valley. Planet Fitness, made popular by The Biggest Loser television show, has opened its fifth location, a 24-hour-a-day center with memberships starting at $10 per month and no long-term obligations. At the other end of the spectrum, LifeTime Fitness, a full-service, …
Net absorption in the first half of 2014 for the Las Vegas office market is positive, by about 500,000 square feet, causing the total office vacancy rate to decline valley-wide. This market has a total office inventory of 60.7 million square feet in 3,860 buildings. About 900,000 square feet remains under construction at the end of the second quarter — about 800,000 square feet of which is speculative development. This is interesting, considering the overall market vacancy is hovering around 20 percent. Average quoted asking rental rates decreased slightly to $1.88 per square foot, per month ($22.56 per square foot annualized) on a full-service gross basis. Concessions, incentives and tenant improvement allowances to secure tenants continue to vary from project to project. The assumption that a tenant could expect to receive up to one month free rent per year of lease term may be a declining trend in the coming quarters. The newer trend is landlords completing speculative build-outs in vacant suites, though this is still not the norm. Investment sales in the first half of 2014 decreased from the previous year, with about 800,000 square feet of properties sold at an average price per square foot that was slightly …
Las Vegas investors remain risk averse, favoring Class A and B properties. Increased buyer demand and a lack of inventory will support more aggressive pricing, with the sellers capitalizing on improving property performance. With stronger operations, Class C owners are encouraged to bring assets to market, pushing deal flow for the properties. The location of the asset is crucial to investors searching for higher returns, which is expected to exceed 8 percent. With an improving local economy, new construction, strengthening job market and a new “downtown,” we can expect a lower apartment vacancy and higher rents in Las Vegas this year. The improving local market and strengthen job market is being driven by some noteworthy construction and openings this year. They include the Linq, SLS Hotel (formerly Sahara Casino), the Downtown Summerlin Mall, the Grand Bazaar Shops, the Malaysia-based Genting Berhad’s $4-billion Resorts World Las Vegas (formerly Echelon) and the announcement of the $2.5-billion renovation of the Las Vegas Convention Center. These projects will create more than 15 million direct and indirect jobs. On top of this, occupancy rates keep rising. The Las Vegas market absorbed more than 3,000 units in 2013. It has absorbed another 760 net-leased units so …
Investor money has returned to the industrial market in Las Vegas. Compressing cap rates continue to result in rising values on properties even in the hardest-hit areas of Las Vegas. Couple that with limited available industrial product, and the result is the need for today’s buyers to act quickly and competitively if they want to acquire quality properties that will deliver attractive yields. MCA Realty initially entered the Las Vegas market in mid-2011 to acquire incubator/mid-bay, multi-tenant industrial properties significantly below replacement cost. Since that time, the firm has seen a substantial shift in the number of buyers competing for this product type in this market. This increasing competition will continue to drive values up, and investors will need to rely even more heavily on their local brokerage relationships to make deals work. On the leasing side, vacancy rates continue their downward trend. Occupancy is up on all industrial product types, and confidence from business owners continues to rise. The result is increased stabilization throughout the market. A key component driving the tenant demand for multi-tenant industrial is the resurgence of hotel construction and renovation in the works on the Las Vegas Strip. This activity has created a surge of …