By Chase Clancy, vice president, Colliers The Austin industrial market is booming. According to Colliers’ research, Austin’s industrial market continues to grow at an amazing clip, spurred by rapid population growth, major manufacturing relocations and new e-commerce and inventory trends. Despite the longstanding shadows that larger markets like Houston and Dallas have cast on Austin’s growth, the market is reaching a fever pitch of rising rents, tightening vacancy, significant new deliveries and equally noteworthy preleasing activity. Based on Austin’s population size, Colliers’ research suggests that the market has the runway — both in terms of supply and demand — to nearly double in size over the next five years. With demand for space showing no sign of cooling at the local level, we project a prolonged period of record development and record absorption. To put that into context, Austin’s industrial market currently spans roughly 57 million square feet. We are tracking more than 40 million square feet of product in our development pipeline — more than 10.2 million square feet of which is currently under construction — with more on the horizon. Trailing 12-month absorption stands at approximately 3.4 million square feet as of the second quarter of 2022, but …
