By Adam Haefner, Avison Young The Chicago industrial market continues to move at full speed at mid-year 2021, with strong tenant demand keeping vacancy around 6 percent, despite 64.7 million square feet of new construction added since 2018. At this stage in the pandemic recovery, large corporate healthcare, retail, logistics and e-commerce businesses continue to drive much of the leasing activity, which totaled 27.5 million square feet near the mid-point of 2021. Companies such as Wayfair, which is building a 1.2 million-square-foot distribution facility in the I-55 Corridor, are joining the ranks of Walmart, Target, Amazon, Home Depot and others that are expanding their industrial space in the Chicago market to keep pace with soaring demand. There are also many small to mid-sized industrial businesses that are increasing their output and expanding their space after seeing slowdowns due to the pandemic. While the industrial sector is navigating some supply chain disruption and fluctuations in construction materials costs, those headwinds are not enough to slow market activity. Given the boost in consumer and business activity from the vaccine rollout and subsequent reduction in the state’s pandemic mitigation measures, demand for industrial space should be strong for the foreseeable future. Avison Young …
