By Joseph W. Brady, President, Bradco Cos. The High Desert portion of San Bernardino County, also known as the Mojave River Valley, is anticipating exceptional industrial development growth in the upcoming years as the balance of the Inland Empire builds out and has no significant land to further develop. The Mojave River Valley region contains more than 22 million square feet of industrial space. The City of Hesperia has recently experienced a mass grading project — probably the largest grading project in the High Desert’s history. Covington Capital is mass grading 232 acres where it intends to build a 3.5-million-square-foot industrial complex. The first building (1,055,360 square feet) will be developed for Modway. It will increase the major furniture distributor’s ability to serve regional and national distribution requirements from its current 310,555-square-foot facility in Fontana. The 60-acre site is being developed by Exeter Property Group. Big Lots opened its new distribution center in north/east Apple Valley in late 2019. This 1.3-million-square-foot facility sits just south of Walmart’s distribution center. Brightline West has also acquired property in north Apple Valley near Dale Evans Parkway for a high-speed rail station that will move passengers from Southern California to Las Vegas in 90 minutes at speeds …
Market Reports
By Taylor Williams E-commerce has revealed some fundamental truths about how humans consume goods, mainly that price point and convenience are by far the most important criteria in purchase decisions. The COVID-19 pandemic has served to further ingrain these mentalities and to suck more people into the world of online shopping in the name of adhering to public health guidelines. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2020, a year in which a global health crisis spurred furious increases in online shopping, total e-commerce sales clocked in at $791.7 billion, up a staggering 32.4 percent from 2019. E-commerce sales accounted for 14.4 percent of all retail sales in 2020 — essentially double the 7.3 percent proportion in 2015. In addition, the National Retail Federation (NRF) is projecting that e-commerce sales will grow by 18 to 23 percent in 2021, yielding a total annual sales volume in excess of $1.1 trillion. Based on 2020 figures provided by the NRF, which cited total retail sales of just over $4 trillion, the e-commerce component is now poised to account for more than a quarter of the market. Especially in the early days of the pandemic, the need to minimize shopping trips and shelter …
By Pierre Debbas, Esq., partner at Romer Debbas LLP While headlines have primarily focused on impacts to small businesses, contrary to popular belief, large retailers and national chains have not been immune to the COVID-19 pandemic. Restaurant and hotel chains, movie theaters, gyms and other experiential retailers have shuttered locations across the country. Just this past July, legacy retailer Neiman Marcus closed its Hudson Yards location due to heavy COVID-19 impacts. The big box retailer also faced store closures in other locations, such as Florida and Washington, due to a high loss of revenue. These large, vacant retail spaces have created problems, especially in markets ike Manhattan. While there are some moves in play, such as Home Depot taking over the Bed Bath & Beyond’s midtown location, or Target setting sights on the former 86th Street outpost of Barnes & Noble, the reality of vacant spaces – large and small – is apparent throughout the city’s prime retail hubs. When looking forward, landlords will have to consider subdivisions and repurposing of big box spaces to make leasing viable, potentially making way for smaller-concept retailers and the return of mom-and-pop shops. Essentially, the question remains: What is the true absorption rate …
By Tory Glossip, Managing Director, Colliers Puget Sound has 553,566 square feet of retail under construction, comprising 0.4 percent of existing inventory. The market dynamic will keep retail property values in the Pacific Northwest higher than most U.S. markets that are overbuilt. Puget Sound’s retail market posts rents 30 percent above the national average at $20.71 per square foot. Pricing is traditionally a function of supply and demand. In the retail world, that demand relies partially on income. The most expensive markets to lease retail space also happen to have the highest incomes…by far. Despite ideas in some circles that retail is dead, physical footprints will continue to be an important part of the retail landscape, although less so in downtown areas until workers return to the office. Most consumers have retreated to submarkets, leaving retailers to explore alternative options to use their property more effectively. Brands are expanding their reach with small-format stores and cross-promoting their products and services in showrooms. Many are leveraging smaller footprints into touch-and-feel locations that seamlessly blend online browsing and in-store purchasing. The shopping mall as we know it will have a different look and feel post-COVID. With big box retail reallocating existing space into localized …
By Tom Graf, NAI FMA Realty Over the past decade, Lincoln has experienced sustained growth and earned a reputation as a place to be in the Midwest. Its low unemployment, stable economy, low cost of living, prospering tech scene as well as lifestyle and entertainment fitting of a big city with the feel of a small community has insulated Lincoln better than many cities of its size. Perhaps this is most compelling with the number of cranes spotted in the skies back in 2008 and again in 2020. Just as many cities were struggling, Lincoln built its way out of the Great Recession in 2008 and 2020 was no exception. Retail Throughout the economic uncertainty brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, Lincoln’s retail landscape fared well with vacancy holding at 7.1 percent for the year in 2020. New construction was active throughout the market despite store closures and bankruptcies making the national headlines. For some opportunistic retailers, vacant spaces opened the door to take advantage of the market and negotiate better terms for new locations. Retailers thriving in today’s market are the “daily needs” retailers — grocery, home improvement and discount concepts. Some niche online businesses, which have grown through …
By Doug Derrick, SIOR, managing broker, NAI El Paso The remarkable pace and volume of industrial growth that has defined the major markets of Texas over the past decade is making its way to El Paso, as evidenced by larger projects for marquee tenants and elevated levels of institutional capital targeting the market. The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the appeal of industrial assets of all varieties, crowding the space with capital sources, driving up prices and creating lower yields on new investments. This holds especially true in high-growth markets like Dallas and Austin, which is why institutional investors are beginning to target secondary markets like El Paso, where assets can be acquired at lower prices. El Paso is experiencing the same growth in e-commerce and online shopping as the rest of the country. This market also continues to benefit from international trade and manufacturing across the border, adding another unique form of demand for developers and owners in our border town. Over the past decade, the volume of El Paso’s exports has doubled, with much of those goods flowing to Mexico. We expect to see manufacturers continue to locate operations in markets other than China, which should increase demand for …
By Taylor Williams Demand for industrial space continues to surge throughout New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, prompting developers to undertake more projects on a speculative basis and avail themselves to the classic mantra of “If you build it, they will come.” E-commerce users, spanning every industry from building materials to electronics to food, continue to spearhead the demand side of the equation. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2020, a year in which a global health crisis spurred furious increases in online shopping, e-commerce sales accounted for 14.4 percent of all retail sales, up from 7.3 percent in 2015. That figure is expected to grow to nearly 20 percent by 2024. Lenders are eager to finance speculative industrial projects, and developers are scouring the Mid-Atlantic for viable sites as spec projects increasingly account for bigger portions of their portfolios. “Pre-COVID, and even dating back several years, you might see 20 percent of the Mid-Atlantic industrial projects being done as build-to-suits,” says Rob Borny, senior vice president of capital deployment and head of the East Region for Nevada-based Dermody Properties. “It’s now moving toward being significantly less [build-to-suit activity] due to robust tenant demand, as well as the shorter lead …
By Alex Kachris, research manager — Northeast industrial region, JLL Industrial commercial real estate had its second-best year on record in 2020, with U.S. transaction volume nearing $96 billion. As competition among investors for industrial product remains strong in 2021, JLL Capital Markets Research isolated one sub-class that is gaining investor interest: multi-use logistics. The multi-use logistics profile includes older, multi-tenant assets ranging from 20,000 to 100,000 square feet that have solid footprints within infill urban logistics markets. These assets, which often have diversified, local tenant bases, usually house a mix of distribution, flex showroom, industrial showroom, R&D, warehouse and/or manufacturing space. Multi-use logistics assets boast compelling rent growth profiles and strong long-term outlooks. With new, yield-focused investors jumping into the industrial space, multi-use logistics product is desirable as an alternative to the bulk industrial market, which is getting tighter. Given that multi-use logistics facilities are generally older properties, population centers have exploded around these assets, making not only almost impossible to replace but highly sought-after as last-mile logistics locations close to end users. Compounded by industry fundamentals that are driven by macroeconomic factors, including reshoring and acceleration of e-commerce adoption, the increased demand for these smaller, multi-tenant industrial assets …
By John Dickerson, OMNE Partners Our Omaha-area industrial sector has come through the pandemic very well, compared with other commercial sectors. We have not had to work out many rent payment plans with tenants, and industrial users going out of business have been minimal. Omaha has survived and come out of 2020 well economically. Our unemployment rate is the second lowest in the country. Our cost of living has also been lower than most other major cities in the Midwest. This low cost of living carries over to real estate rental rates and operating costs. Leasing activity Industrial leasing has been quite good in Omaha for years. Our vacancy rates have been below 5 percent for a number of years and currently have been about 3.5 percent. By reviewing spaces for lease on Crexi, an internet marketing service, there are about 120 properties that I identified with space available with a total of over 3 million square feet for lease. Rental rates for industrial vary, of course, for typical reasons — age and condition of the property, location and how much a space/building might be finished in office or other special improvements. In Omaha, many flex buildings have users that …
By Adam Frank, president, River Oaks Properties As one of the sector’s largest owners and developers, we have been witness to a number of uplifting and heartbreaking outcomes wrought by COVID-19 in the El Paso retail market over the last year. We’ve spent countless hours working with the 800 or so tenants that comprise our portfolio, negotiating rent deferrals and restructured leases, helping them navigate the newly launched Paycheck Protection Program and devising creative real estate solutions to help keep their businesses afloat. In some cases, these efforts have helped tenants keep their doors open. In others, the economic impacts of COVID-19 ultimately hit the employee bases and operating budgets of tenants — especially those of the mom-and-pop variety — too harshly for them to survive. But through the good, bad and universally unprecedented challenges of 2020, we have seen one category of retail — food and beverage — position itself as the clear leader in the recovery and inevitable return to growth of the broader El Paso market. As is often the case during economic downturns, the grocery sector has performed well over the past year, with both large- and small-format players looking to expand in El Paso. River …