"We had a little flurry of acquisition activity, but a lot of those deals surfaced before things got so dire," he tells GlobeSt.com. "Sellers who were committed to selling made themselves apparent in the third quarter, but since then, I've seen sellers back away a little."

The most recent acquisitions included, a 192,500-square-foot warehouse-manufacturing property in Sturtevant, WI, 28,680-square-foot warehouse in Woodstock, IL, 28,680-square-foot warehouse in Channahon, IL and two warehouse-distribution buildings in Memphis totaling 680,000 square feet. All the buildings were fully leased at the time of sale. In addition to the acquisitions, the company recently broke ground on two industrial buildings totaling 448,610 square feet in Mt. Pleasant, WI. The facilities, including one of the region's first LEED-certified warehouses, constitute the first phase of HSA's seven-building Park 94 at Mt. Pleasant.

According to Ogden, HSA's 2008 acquisition volume is off about 50% from last year, but he attributes only a portion of the falloff to the current year's more challenging market conditions. "Part of what happened last year was driven by having a lot of 1031 money," he explains. "We were more aggressive than we would have been with fresh money. We could afford to buy at a little bit less of a premium than we would ordinarily."