Large New Warehouses Trade Quickly in Jacksonville

There’s been a tidal wave of new supply in Jacksonville’s industrial market in the past 12 months, with two of the largest deliveries quickly finding buyers.

The latest to change hands is a recently completed 550K SF facility at Imeson Park that is fully leased to Primark, the Dublin, Ireland-based fashion, home and beauty retailer.

INDUS Realty Trust acquired the distribution center from VanTrust Real Estate for an undisclosed price. JLL represented the seller in the transaction.

The new Jacksonville warehouse is Primark’s second U.S. distribution center and its first in Florida. The cross-dock building offers 40-foot clear heights, 99 dock-high loading doors and 175 trailer parking stalls. The facility, located at 1511 Zoo Parkway, is part of the massive Imeson Park South logistics complex.

Imeson Park South is in the midst of building a 3M SF logistics hub on a 215-acre site about seven miles southwest of JaxPort. At the complex, five buildings have been completed, with two more under construction.

Last month, Dallas-based Hillwood paid $91M for a 1M SF warehouse located at the Florida Gateway Logistics Park. The industrial building, built on a 52-acre site last year at 9909 Pritchard Road, was sold by Newport Beach, CA-based CT Realty.

The 1.7M SF gateway park, located at Westlake Industrial Park in West Jacksonville, is in the midst of an 829K SF expansion.

Jacksonville’s industrial market has seen a flood of new deliveries in the past 12 months, with 6.6M SF of warehouse and distribution space coming online in the second half of 2023 and another 1.5M SF in deliveries for the first half of 2024.

New supply pushed the industrial vacancy rate in Jacksonville to 5% in Q2 2024, an increase of 210 bps in a year-over-year comparison, while net absorption remained positive in Q2 at 551K SF, according to the latest market report from Cushman & Wakefield.

Following the record total of nearly 8M SF of industrial deliveries in 2023, construction starts have slowed in 2024 as market demand has normalized. At the end of the second quarter, 3.4M SF of new space remained under construction, the lowest amount since Q3 2021.

“With limited preleasing thus far, vacancy should continue to rise as these buildings deliver,” C&W’s report said.

Leasing activity totaled about 979K SF, a 34% year-over-year decrease, with close to half of the leasing volume in the second quarter attributed to three deals. The largest of which was a 203K SF lease signed by Neal Brothers Charleston for space at 2101 W. 33rd Street.

Industrial rents have begun to grow again, posting a 10.5% year-over-year increase in Q2 to $7.92 per SF.

“As product that is under construction continues to deliver throughout the rest of 2024, rents will likely continue to rise as new product commands higher rents,” Cushman & Wakefield said.