Real estate demand for warehouses at unprecedented levels: report

As retailers’ beef up e-commerce operations and invest in faster delivery, the appetite for warehouse space is soaring, according to a new report.

This year, demand among mass merchandisers for logistics facilities to store inventory and pack and ship online orders will be the highest it has ever been, commercial real estate services firm JLL reported.

JLL has been tracking pent-up demand among big-box and value retailers including Walmart, Target, Big Lots, and Costco, all of which are competing for space. Many of these companies are playing catch up to Amazon, which for years has been gobbling up warehouses — big and small — in central locations across the country. More recently, that buying and leasing activity has spread into more densely populated areas including New York City.

“We’ve been on a long-term journey of shifting consumer behavior from buying in stores to online,” Craig Meyer, president of JLL’s Americas industrial division, said in an interview with CNBC. “That’s the existential driver for demand in the U.S.”