As retail struggles throughout the pandemic, there are many arguments for converting slumping shopping centers into new uses.
Big box retail hasn’t suffered as much as mom-and-pop stores, gyms and restaurants. Still, investors and developers are looking to warehouse conversions as a way to take advantage of the higher returns and strong rental growth of the logistics sector, according to Stuart Taylor, senior director of retail investments for JLL in a new post.
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Industrial developer Jose Hernandez-Solaun of The Easton Group has seen Amazon spur the rise of e-commerce over the last few years. But now, he sees the coronavirus pandemic rapidly ramping up that growth — putting it on steroids.
“What we are finding now is the coronavirus effect,” said Hernandez-Solaun. “If the Amazon effect was strength training, this was what you get on performance-enhancing drugs.”
Hernandez-Solaun and other South Florida industrial brokers and developers say the sector could benefit in the long-term from many of the behavioral changes spurred by the crisis. Consumers, increasingly from older generations, will shift more of their spending to e-commerce. More manufacturers will come to the Americas from China. And after experiencing inventory shortages, more warehouses will be needed, experts say.
New numbers have confirmed that 2019 was a monumental year for industrial real estate, with total volume soaring to a record high of $102B, JLL reports.
That propulsion is expected to carry into 2020. JLL predicts industrial volumes in 2020 will continue to boom, with large-scale portfolio deal flows that are slated to finish during the first two quarters of 2020.
