DALLAS — The Dallas industrial market is on fire, as a number of industry professionals repeatedly pointed out during the InterFace DFW Industrial conference. Held on Sept. 4 at the Westin Galleria Hotel in Dallas, the event drew more than 200 people in its inaugural year. Demand for industrial real estate from tenants, investors and lenders is strong enough to insulate the Dallas market from capitulation, even if the U.S. economy enters a recession, which some economists think may still be a ways off. During the event’s lenders and investors panel, speakers credited strong job and population growth in Dallas for this market insulation. Annually, the metroplex has added roughly 100,000 people and 75,000 jobs for the past several years. The market boasts a vacancy rate of 6 percent even with more than 30 million square feet of space under construction, according to CoStar Group. And tenant demand in Dallas continues to surge as well, fueling 12-month rent growth of 5.6 percent. Nikki Gibson, senior counsel at Bell Nunnally, moderated the panel. Market Evolution Central to the panel’s discussion as to why the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) industrial market is likely to weather severe economic storms was the notion that the …
