ATLANTA—Atlanta just posted one of its best-ever years on the industrial real estate front. In 2014, Atlanta just posted its highest total net absorption in 16 years, with 17.4 million square feet of leasing, according to a CBRE report.

To put that into perspective, only two other years saw stronger performance in Atlanta's industrial market history. In 1997, Atlanta saw 18.2 million square feet of industrial space absorbed and in 1998 the market saw 19.6 square feet of absorption.

“Big block leasing was responsible for a great deal of the space absorbed,” says Dan Wagner, CBRE Southeast Research Director. “We saw 11 new leases of over 100,000 square feet each. The primary drivers behind the big block absorption remain third-party logistics companies and other forms of logistics.”