Industrial real estate demand to grow to 1b square feet by 2025

The COVID-19 pandemic and the shelter-in-place policies that ensued have accelerated e-commerce growth and the need for warehouse space across the nation. JLL expects e-commerce sales could hit $1.5 trillion by 2025 — which would increase the demand for industrial real estate to an additional 1 billion square feet.

Prior to the pandemic, JLL attributed as much as 35 percent of its industrial leasing to e-commerce, but now, with expectations for e-commerce to grow 20 percent in 2020 alone, JLL reports as much as 50 percent of its leasing activity is already attributed to related operations this year.

“Since 2011, industrial rent growth has been positive and vacancy rates have been at historic lows providing attractive, stable, long-term returns to investors. These solid fundamentals and the fact that e-commerce still has a long runway for growth makes industrial real estate the darling of the commercial real estate industry,” said Craig Meyer, presiden