Cincinnati Industrial Market Hits Historic Low

CINCINNATI—The steady recovery of the US economy and the simultaneous expansion of e-commerce has sent the vacancy rate for this region’s industrial properties plunging to a historic low. And despite that record-low vacancy, positive absorption has been significant so far in 2015, and shows no sign of slowing down in the third or fourth quarters of the year, according to a new mid-year market study by DTZ.

“This is the lowest vacancy rate that we’ve seen, at least within the past ten years,” Skylar Stein, an associate in DTZ’s Cincinnati office, tells GlobeSt.com. In the first quarter, vacancy sank to just 4.63%, but in the second it went even lower and eventually hit 4.37%. And the importance of distribution buildings to the metro area is illustrated by the fact that the rate for class A bulk warehouses now stands at just 1.3%.