➤ The Signal
Occupiers are back to signing large, long-duration commitments.
Spec development is restarting where land and power align.
The industrial pause has a clear end date in the data. Big-box leasing up 80.7% year-over-year is not a soft recovery — it is occupiers who spent two years shrinking suddenly willing to commit half-million-foot blocks again.
Two deals frame the return. A SoCal distributor paying ~$42M to expand in one of the tightest submarkets in the country signals confidence in throughput, not caution. Hillwood putting 1.2M sf of spec into the ground signals developers believe that confidence lasts.
The tell is duration. Large-format leases and ground-up spec are both bets on demand three-to-five years out. You don’t sign them in a market you expect to keep shrinking.
The discipline that survived the downturn remains. Spec is restarting in proven logistics nodes with land and power — not everywhere. The winners are established parks with infrastructure already in place.
➤ Implications
For developers, the reopening favors entitled, powered sites in established corridors; greenfield speculation still carries lease-up risk. For investors, big-box absorption is the cleanest read that the industrial correction has bottomed.
Key Takeaways
- “When tenants start signing half-million-foot leases again, the industrial correction is over — but only in the corridors that already work.”
- “Source: The Real Deal · D CEO · JLL — July 2026”
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