CHICAGO—The local industrial market has been putting up great numbers for several years, and 2015 is shaping up to be no different. Since 2014, rent growth has continued alongside falling vacancy rates in many submarkets, according to data on the third quarter just published by Transwestern. But perhaps even more significant, investors still can't get enough of the Chicago-area market. Although third quarter sales fell off from the first two, the year as a whole is still on pace to record the largest gains in investment sales since the recession.

Industrial real estate sales prices are on average $74.15 per square foot, Transwestern found, a big jump from the $45.16 per square foot recorded last year. Overall vacancy dropped 40 bps from the second quarter, and now stands at just 7.2%. Rental rates held steady in the third quarter at $5.38 per square foot but activity doubled with 3.3 million square feet absorbed across the entire region.

“E-commerce is changing the landscape across all commercial real estate types, but especially with industrial properties,” according to Transwestern. Most of the companies moving to the Chicago area have some e-commerce component. Local manufacturing companies, such as Caterpillar, continue to downsize, and most of the tenant demand is for distribution spaces and 3PLs supporting online retail vendors. “The remaining question will be if savvy owners will be able to repositions older suburban industrial products in order to make it attractive to alternative users.”