The North America industrial and logistics market had its strongest year on record in 2020 despite — or perhaps because of — the coronavirus pandemic that otherwise caused a severe economic downturn. CBRE reported that occupiers moved into facilities in droves to serve a rapidly growing online consumer base and increase their safety stock to avoid inventory disruptions that plagued the past year. All sizes and types of industrial real estate performed well in 2020 but none more so than the big-box sector, according to the report, titled 2020 North America Industrial Big Box.

An industrial big-box facility is a warehouse/distribution center of 200,000 square feet or more. All types of occupiers increased their presence in big-box facilities during 2020 to serve growing populations, be near expanding logistics hubs and take advantage of new government incentive programs.

Ecommerce retailers signed more deals in big-box facilities than ever before, while third-party logistics providers expanded in logistics hub markets to better serve their growing customer base. This demand led to robust absorption of space, higher taking rents and, despite a large amount of new development, lower direct vacancy rates for big-box product. All of these fundamentals led to record-low industrial cap rates, CBRE researchers found.

This report provides a detailed overview of supply-and-demand fundamentals, demographics, logistics drivers, labor and location incentives for the top 22 markets in North America:

Atlanta

Baltimore

Central Florida

Central Valley, Calif.

Chicago

Cincinnati

Columbus

Dallas/Ft. Worth

Houston

Indianapolis

Inland Empire, Calif.

Kansas City

Los Angeles County

Louisville

Memphis

Montreal

Northern/Central, N.J.

Phoenix

Seattle

Southern N.J./Eastern Penn.

St. Louis

Toronto

Read the complete report at this URL: https://bit.ly/3ed4uAz.

Mike Consol (m.consol@irei.com) is editor of Real Assets Adviser. Follow him on Twitter @mikeconsol to read his latest postings.