Craig Meyer | Source | President of Industrial, Americas at JLL

It’s no secret that the pandemic has accelerated trends that were already well on their way. Last year, online sales were at 11% and this year during the pandemic sales are surging past 20%, leading more retail store operators to consider turning their empty department stores into last mile distribution centers. With JLL’s new blended service model, JLL will strategically cater to individual client needs with an end-to-end approach. JLL is now providing one simple, easy to understand approach by blending the firm’s service lines under one team. This new task force allows the team to better understand the needs of owners, the occupants of retail, and the owners of retail real estate, which were previously independent processes.

Since 2011, industrial rent growth has been positive and vacancy rates have been at historic lows, providing attractive, stable, long-term returns to investors. These solid fundamentals and the fact that e-commerce still has a long runway for growth makes industrial real estate the darling of the commercial real estate industry.