By John Dickerson, OMNE Partners Omaha continues to be strong economically. The Omaha-area population is nearing the 1 million mark, and Omaha has been rated in the top 10 of cities to move to. Unemployment is less than 3 percent compared with about 4 percent nationally, and employment growth is about 2 percent per year. In commercial real estate, business news generally says that Omaha is doing better than larger cities in the U.S. Of the key sectors, industrial has performed very well. Leasing pace Per CoStar information, Omaha’s vacancy rate is 3 percent. The total industrial square footage is 108 million square feet, and there is approximately 4 million square feet under construction. A large share of construction is due to Google, Facebook and other large users adding facilities. About 1.7 million square feet has been absorbed in the last year. Currently, per market information gathered from Crexi listings, there is approximately 2.6 million square feet available for lease in Douglas and Sarpy counties. (See chart for a breakdown by property types.) One other thing to note is that in the 139 properties with space for lease, there appears to be only 20 spaces for lease with 2,000 square …
