By Denny Sciscoe, The Lund Co. The Omaha industrial market is experiencing increased leasing velocity, positive rent growth and record-breaking development. The market consists of 18 submarkets, totaling 103 million square feet of inventory. Omaha has traditionally been a risk-averse market with steady, slow-paced growth. Since 2016, Omaha has seen increased speculative development, which is absorbed as fast as it is built. In 2020, we began to see hyper-development, fueled by increased demand and developer confidence. The increased demand was a result of COVID-19, where we experienced five years of growth in a 12-month period as occupiers scrambled to find space for inventories and e-commerce, which was exasperated by the demand to store “just in case” inventories. The supply and demand dynamics of our market have been almost perfectly balanced. The average deliveries are around 1.3 million square feet annually, and our average absorption has been around 1.4 million square feet. Since the beginning of 2022, we are tracking about 5 million square feet of demand and another 2.2 million square feet of space that is currently in the construction pipeline. Overall vacancy currently sits at 2.6 percent, which is 100 basis points below our average of 3.6 percent. …
