ST. LOUIS—The industrial sector in St. Louis is set to have another historic year, with 2.3 million square feet of space currently under construction, and several additional large speculative buildings planned for the Metro East, North County and St. Charles County submarkets, according to a new report from DTZ. And although absorption was slower in the first quarter of 2015 as compared to the first quarter of 2014, experts say this was hardly a surprise.

“It was impossible to keep up with the absorption we had in 2014,” DTZ managing director Ed Lampitt tells GlobeSt.com. The market got off to a strong start in 2014. And the rest of the year was also quite vibrant. The region saw 1.35 million square feet of positive absorption in the fourth quarter alone, bringing the 2014 total to 5.3 million square feet – the highest annual absorption figure recorded for the St. Louis area. In the first quarter of 2015, the market experienced 290,000 square feet of absorption. “That's a great number and a great start to the year.”

The current metro industrial vacancy rate is at 6.4% or about 80 bps lower than the historical average of 7.2%, according to DTZ. And for class A facilities the rate has sunk below 5%, Lampitt says. Furthermore, in several submarkets the class A rate has hit zero. “So we are getting very close to the bottom.”