The Columbus, Ohio, industrial market isn’t unique these days: It, like so many others across the country, set its own absorption record in 2021.
According to Lee & Associate’s fourth quarter Columbus industrial report, the industrial market in Ohio’s capital city absorbed 15.7 million square feet of space. That’s a record for this market.
At the same time, the average rent per-square-foot for industrial space continues to rise. Lee & Associates reported that industrial assets in the Columbus market rented for an average of $4.59 a square foot throughout 2021.
Don’t expect this industrial market to slow anytime soon. Lee & Associates reported that 15.7 million square feet of industrial space was under construction in the fourth quarter of 2021. Of that amount, 13.37 million square feet was on a speculative basis.
The largest industrial completion in the fourth quarter in the Columbus market occurred in the Licking County submarket where TPA Group delivered a more than 1-million-square-foot build-to-suit for Ashley Homestore.
This same submarket also saw the completion of Scannell’s 587,500-square-foot build-to-suit for Fedex.
The Madison County submarket saw two build-to-suit industrial projects completed, 517,220 square feet for Amazon by Duke Realty and 339,318 square feet for Moen by EQT Exeter.