Average Size Of Newly Built US Warehouses Swells Due To E-Commerce

DALLAS - December 7, 2017 - E-commerce has driven a more than doubling of the average footprint of warehouses built in the U.S. since the early 2000s, with the largest expansions coming in metro areas with the big populations that online sellers covet and the ample land that developers need, according to a new report from CBRE.

CBRE analyzed the average size of warehouses built in the U.S. during the last development upswing from 2002 to 2007 and compared those figures to the current building period of 2012-2017. The analysis found that the average size increased by 143 percent in that span to 184,693 square feet and the average warehouse clear height rose by 3.7 feet, to 32.3 feet in total. Dallas-Fort Worth experienced an average size increase of 134,613 square feet with the average new building size from 2012-2017 being 247,304 square feet.

Due to its South-Central location and logistics-serving infrastructure, Dallas-Fort Worth has attracted many large regional and super-regional distribution developments. Dallas-Fort Worth saw the second highest new warehouse construction in the country with 82.8 million square feet coming online from 2012-2017. Of the 56.2 million square feet in deliveries tracked by CBRE Research in Dallas-Fort Worth since 2015, 72.8 percent were buildings of 250,000 square feet or more.

"Over the previous 5-10 years, Dallas-Fort Worth has increasingly become an aggregation market for bulk distribution.? Being the most migrated to region in the country for general population, and a top destination for corporate headquarters relocations, demand for goods in the immediate geographic area naturally increases, and thus the demand for industrial real estate," said Steve Trese, Senior Vice President, CBRE. "E-commerce is a large needle mover in our absorption numbers, as with all other major U.S. markets, but the percentage growth of population in DFW against those other markets is a compounding factor to this phenomenon."

The largest gains in average warehouse size came in markets with big, growing populations and a ready supply of developable land, led by Atlanta (284 percent gain in average size), Cincinnati (237 percent) and California's Inland Empire (222 percent).

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.