Industrial Developers Confront Land Scarcity

CHICAGO—As reported yesterday in GlobeSt.com, the Opus Group and USAA Real Estate Co. just succeeded in signing Midwest Warehouse & Distribution System, Inc. to occupy their new 604,565-square-foot logistics building in suburban North Aurora. And Mike Yungerman, vice president of real estate development for the Minneapolis-based Opus Development Co., LLC, tells GlobeSt.com it’s a good sign for the I-88 area that such a huge speculative project, which the partners finished in October, was filled up so quickly.

“Given the historical trends, developers and owners are happy if they can get a building like this leased in six months,” he says. Back in 2013, Opus had started some smaller specs, but also noticed that “there was zero availability for I-88 tenants that needed new spaces with more than 400,000-square-feet. Eventually, there was going to be a need.”