(Save the date: RealShare Industrial 2012 comes to The Bankers Club, Miami, December 5 - 6.)

BOSTON-Richards Barry Joyce & Partners reports that quarterly absorption for industrial real estate in the Greater Boston area hit 519,000 square feet this quarter. This is the second highest quarterly figure seen in the sector over the past four years, according to the firm's indSTATus Fall 2012 report. Data in this document includes warehouse, flex and manufacturing property types. 

Describing this as a “strong” quarter is a highly accurate assessment for industrial property types here. Currently, the warehouse market is experiencing the highest vacancy rate at 19.4%, which represented a decrease of 0.4% from the previous quarter this year. Manufacturing and flex space both reported vacancy rates of 17.1%, and the flex market has seen a significant amount of absorption - 173,000 square feet, to be exact. Warehouse space is in the greatest demand, however, with 327,000 square feet of positive absorption this quarter. The firm also found that, in the warehouse sector, that direct available square footage has dropped by more than two million square feet over the last two quarters as eight properties have experienced at least 100,000 square feet of commitments.

In the flex market, Marlborough’s 417 South Street was completed, which was the first new product of its type in the Greater Boston area since 2008. According to the report, this asset was also 100% available at press time. Asking rents apparently remain “firm” at $7.98 per square foot.

Manufacturing is also doing extremely well. The market is in the middle of a four-quarter streak of positive absorption. RBJ reveals that tenants have increased occupancy levels to 387,000 square feet and lowered vacancy from 18.5% to 17.1%. Interestingly, the firm also finds that manufacturing remains a rarely developed new property type, with the last completion in 2006.