Dallas - February 14, 2017 -The rapid growth of e-commerce has created a big trend in U.S. industrial markets: a proliferation of warehouses spanning one million square feet or larger. Dallas/Fort Worth has seen the construction of 13 such facilties since 2010, making it one of the top three markets in the country for megawarehouses.
The massive warehouses and distribution centers have sprouted from Southern California to Philadelphia, clustering around metro areas that provide the mix of road, rail and sea access that e-commerce users covet, according to a new report from CBRE Group, Inc.
All told, 117 such facilities were built across the U.S. from 2010 to 2016 for a total of 141.2 million sq. ft., which shows an increase from the 99 facilities built between 2003 and 2009, according to CBRE. The markets in which the most big-box construction occurred in the 2010-2016 timeframe are led by Philadelphia, California's Inland Empire and Dallas/Fort Worth.
Looking ahead, the busiest markets for on-going construction of 1 million-sq.-ft. warehouses are led by the Inland Empire, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Baltimore and Dallas/Fort Worth. Across the 10 busiest U.S. markets for this type of construction, 29 such facilities are underway.
"The DFW logistics sector has emerged as a preferred asset class for institutional investors both domestic and foreign," said Jack Fraker, a Vice Chairman with CBRE in Dallas. "New economic drivers such as e-commerce and the entire supply chain model including the 'Last Mile' are creating even more growth in the sector. Investors realize that the fundamentals are very robust with record setting metrics for net absorption and rental rate growth."
While massive warehouses aren't purely a phenomenon of e-commerce, the two are closely related. E-commerce users typically need two to three times the amount of warehouse and distribution space that traditional users do. That's mostly because e-commerce fulfillment requires more inventory, labor and automation.
"The spread of these big-box facilities tells us several things," said David Egan, CBRE's Head of Industrial & Logistics Research in the Americas. "Primarily, it underscores the rapid growth of e-commerce, since these megafacilities serve as the backbone of retailers' fulfillment networks, distributing goods across multistate regions."
About CBRE Group, Inc.
CBRE Group, Inc. (NYSE: CBG), a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company headquartered in Los Angeles, is the world's largest commercial real estate services and investment firm (based on 2016 revenue). The company has more than 75,000 employees (excluding affiliates), and serves real estate investors and occupiers through approximately 450 offices (excluding affiliates) worldwide. CBRE offers a broad range of integrated services, including facilities, transaction and project management; property management; investment management; appraisal and valuation; property leasing; strategic consulting; property sales; mortgage services and development services. Please visit our website at www.cbre.com.
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