Industrial Sublease Availability Up 46%, And Not Just Because Of Amazon
The amount of industrial space that occupiers returned to the market grew considerably in 2022, and experts at Colliers expect that trend to continue into the new year.
Since the start of last year, the total square footage of available industrial sublease space has grown nearly 46%, with spaces larger than 200K SF fueling that trend, according to a report from Colliers National Industrial Research Director Amanda Ortiz published Tuesday.
Amazon, the dominant player that has driven the industrial boom in recent years, was reported in May to be putting up to 30M SF of warehouse space on the sublease market. The e-commerce giant closed multiple facilities last year and postponed new openings, and CoStar reported in November Amazon had put 48 spaces on the sublease market.
Despite the industry concern caused by Amazon's pullback, Colliers' report found that the manufacturing sector actually put the most industrial space on the sublease market over the last 12 months.
The general retail and wholesale sector accounted for 20% of available sublease space, and e-commerce-only users accounted for 17.7%.
Ortiz said rising interest rates, flagging consumer confidence and other economic headwinds were partially to blame for the trend of industrial users putting space on the market.
Colliers' report said the rate of occupancy gains still remains above pre-pandemic levels, even as demand decelerates slightly.
