President Trump is focusing a massive effort on reviving America’s Rust Belt. One measure of his success could be the demand for industrial property in the capital of the region, Chicago.
TheRealDeal.com, a Chicago real estate news site, reports:
The Chicago industrial market remained hot in the second quarter as asking rents hit a record high of $5.58 per square foot.
Vacancy rates essentially remained even, inching up from 8 percent to 8.1 percent, despite the delivery of more than 2 million square feet of speculative space, according to Newmark Knight Frank’s second quarter industrial market report.
Asking rents were highest on the North Side of the city, where they averaged $8.15 per square foot. Not far behind was southern DuPage County, where they averaged $7.86.
Asking rents averaged $6.62 in the O’Hare submarket, and $5.06 on the South Side of the city, where a 633,000-square-foot spec building is projected to come online this year.
The second quarter produced strong results on the sales side as well, with more than $1.6 billion in investment sales, up nearly 28 percent year over year. The report singled out Blackstone Group’s acquisition of some 4 million square feet of industrial space in the Chicago area as part of a $1.8 billion industrial portfolio buy from Cabot Industries.
“Moving forward, investors will remain focused on larger warehouses and last-mile distribution centers,” the report said, adding Chicago industrial investment sales could have another record-breaking year.
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