CHICAGO—The rise of e-commerce has created the demand for a vast amount of new industrial space, but it has also introduced a level of unpredictability not seen in past booms, RealShare Industrial panelists in Chicago said yesterday. Speakers at a morning panel moderated by Ronan Remandaban, co-founder and chief executive officer of Liquideed, discussed how the need for “Last Mile” distribution centers had transformed the sector, especially in dense urban areas, and how developers and brokers should navigate this new landscape. But there were no easy answers.

“This sector is evolving on Internet time, not regular time,” said Geoffrey Kasselman, executive managing director, national industrial practice, Newmark Knight Frank. And the creation of a whole new world of distribution centers, for which there is no existing model, means users will experiment. Essentially, they are throwing everything against the wall, and seeing what sticks.

As a result, developers and brokers have to keep an open mind and prepare to do unprecedented things. Matt Goode, principal, Venture One Real Estate, which recently broke ground on a 1.1 million square foot spec project in suburban Channahon, said his firm also recently bought a building in the Humboldt Park neighborhood of Chicago, a mostly residential area largely ignored by industrial developers. “We would have never looked at this building seven years ago.”