Chicago’s industrial market is getting stronger, and showing no signs of slowing.
NAI Hiffman reported that during the first quarter of this year, the Chicago industrial market posted a positve net absorption of 3.2 million square feet of vacant space. That’s impressive. So is the industrial sector’s vacancy rate in Chicago, which fell 10 basis points from the end of 2014 to 7.8 percent at the end of the first quarter of this year.
Builders were busy, too, in this sector. NAI Hiffman reported that in the first quarter Chicago’s industrial market saw 2.5 million square feet of construction deliveries. Projects under construction in the first quarter stood at 13 million square feet.
The company reported, too, that more than 1 million square feet of construction was underway in the first quarter in the Southeast Wisconsin, Interstate-80/Joliet Corridor, Interstate-90 Northwest, Interstate-55 corridor and O’Hare submarkets.