Industrial Investors Eye Niche Markets

LOS ANGELES—Ecommerce may be the most talked about driver in the industrial sector, but it certainly isn’t the only driver. Outside of the ecommerce world, the industrial sector is booming with niche markets sprouting up and creating new opportunities for investors, according to Erik Foster, principal and practice leader of industrial capital markets at Avison Young. Foster is speaking on the trends to watch panel at the upcoming NAIOP I.CON conference on June 10 and 11, along with Owen Kean, senior director at American Chemistry Council; Luis Gutierrez, president of Prologis Latin America; and Thomas Tunstall, Ph.D., research director at University of Texas at San Antonio Institute for Economic Development. While preparing for the panel, Foster sat down with us to share his insights on emerging market trends, explaining that there is a lot happening outside of the ecommerce movement.  

“Everybody wants to talk about big buildings and big distribution markets, but there are other things that are presenting themselves in the marketplace,” he tells GlobeSt.com. “From a capital markets and investment perspective, we really need to grasp the fact that industrial assets are one of the mainstays of investors’ portfolios, and with that, it is not just your grandfather’s warehouse. It is food-grade buildings; it is freezer-cooler buildings; it is data centers; it is truck terminals. There are many facets and many different kinds of assets that are being combined to make investment portfolios for the modern industrial investor.”