Industrial Developers Confident but Careful

CHICAGO—The latest uptick in leasing activity in the region’s industrial market will almost certainly encourage developers to break ground on several more large industrial spaces in 2016. But developers may approach these tasks somewhat differently than was done in the recent past.

Clarius Partners, LLC, for example, finished a 1,001,184 square foot industrial building at 3851 Youngs Rd. in Joliet in 2013, but when a rush of potential users started knocking on the door last year, company officials were a bit surprised that a majority were only looking for between 650,000 and 750,000 square feet.