The U.S. industrial real estate sector is entering a transformative year, shaped by shifting policy and evolving development priorities. After years of elevated supply and slower absorption, vacancies are beginning to plateau, making site selection an increasingly critical factor for new construction. According to a CommercialCafe analysis, the national industrial vacancy rate stood at 9.2% at the start of 2026, more than double the 2022 rate and 120 basis points higher
A Miami-based company wants to turn a chunk of Gilbert farm land into a mixed-use development with a Fry’s grocery store, retail and housing for thousands of people. The Harvest Grove master-planned community will be reconsidered by the Town Council Feb. 3 — two weeks after Council rejected the general plan and zoning changes for 311 acres off Val Vista and Germann roads in a 4-3 vote. Mayor Scott Anderson, Vice-Mayor Chuck Bongiovanni and Council members
A fully leased office building has sold in Tempe as vacancy rates in the Phoenix metro fall to years-long lows. Hohokam Court was acquired in January for $11.7 million by ARC TEMPE 2005 LLC, an entity affiliated with Jake Gallagher of Alignment Realty Capital, according to Tempe-based real estate database Vizzda LLC. ARC was represented by brokers at Lee & Associates, while the sellers were represented by JLL, Vizzda found. The single-story 70,853-square-feet building at
It didn’t take long for tensions to boil over as hundreds of people packed into the Tucson Convention Center last summer for a meeting on a controversial data center. Many residents carried signs decrying the proposal, known by the code name Project Blue. A cacophony of “boos” rang out during the first minutes of panelist introductions. Andrew Squire, a spokesperson for the city, attempted to calm the crowd. “Let’s get to the presentation,” he said. “Allow them to
Location: Signal Butte and Williams Field roads in Mesa. Description: A 125-acre auto mall and commercial shopping center is under construction. Brent Berge is developing the auto mall portion of the project with Berge Auto Group. No auto dealerships have been announced for the project. Sean Lake, an attorney representing the master developer of the site, said several dealerships have toured the site and expressed interest. Berge has other auto dealerships across the Valley, including
Understanding the Top 20 emerging industries in Arizona is essential because they reveal where jobs, investment and innovation are headed. These sectors highlight how the state’s economy is evolving, helping business leaders, policymakers and workers make informed decisions, identify new opportunities and prepare for long-term growth in an increasingly competitive and dynamic marketplace. Here is a list of the Top 20 emerging industries in Arizona, with a brief description of
The development pipeline continues to hum in metro Phoenix at the dawn of a new year. While no project can match the drumbeat surrounding Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s ever-evolving north Phoenix campus, where tens of billions of dollars will be invested in the coming years, there are still plenty of impact projects in the works beyond the cottage industry of semiconductor-related enterprises that continue to pop up throughout the Valley
In commercial real estate, the bet is no longer that rates will “normalize,” but that they won’t—and that deals still have to work anyway. With a $190‑billion maturity wall bearing down between 2026 and 2028, investors are shifting from hoping for a rate rescue to underwriting a stubbornly expensive cost of capital, accepting flatter yield curves, and relying on lower leverage, cleaner business plans, and demonstrably durable cash flow to justify buying at discounts to
Semiconductor supplier Shin-Etsu MicroSi is planning to expand its operations in Ahwatukee. The company is going through the rezoning process to make way for a 17,182 square-foot industrial flex building near the northwest corner of Elliot Road and I-10. It already operates two other facilities in that business park, where the company is headquartered. The Ahwatukee Foothills Village Planning Committee recommended approval for the rezoning request
CBRE’s January report on investor activity in the CRE space bears a familiar theme: investors in 2026 are definitely interested and ready to increase their investment but remain cautious. The report is based on a survey of investors’ intentions. It showed that 70% of investors plan to buy more CRE, while an additional 20% will keep it at the same level. Less than 5% intend to buy less than in 2025. In 2025, just 48% of investors planned increased allocations to CRE. More
The U.S. hotel industry continued to show a clear performance divide across property classes in 2025. High‑end consumers, still willing to pay for premium experiences, boosted demand at luxury hotels. Revenue per available room, or RevPAR, for the luxury hotel segment rose 3%. In contrast, consumers with less disposable income pulled back on both travel frequency and spending, leading to a 4.4% decline in RevPAR among economy class hotels. Many economists
For the first time since July 2025, the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee left interest rates unchanged—a move widely expected across markets as policymakers hold steady amid balanced but uncertain economic signals. Analysts say the same could follow in March as the Fed watches to see how past rate cuts ripple through the economy and inflation trends. “Given the more likely FOMC view hat dual risks of inflation and unemployment are mostly in balance, we should not expect any
The U.S. economy is still growing, but for commercial real estate investors, the more important story may be where growth is not showing up: payrolls. In a recent Marcus & Millichap webinar on the 2026 outlook, Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi described a market in which restrictive immigration policy has slowed labor force growth so sharply that job creation has “come virtually to a standstill,” even as GDP expands at a solid clip. That divergence, he
City Winery, a heralded winery, restaurant, live music venue and multi-functional events space concept, has signed on to open a 30,000-square-foot location in Scottsdale. The New York-based business that started in 2008 and now has 12 locations mostly on the East Coast, will be opening in the Sydney, a $100 million entertainment-driven retail development on a 26-acre site on Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community Land near 90th Street and the Loop 101 freeway Construction on the three-story City Winery
CapRock Partners, a privately-owned investor and developer of industrial real estate in the Western and Central U.S., today announced the completion of CapRock West 202 Logistics – Phase 2, marking the final phase of Phoenix’s largest speculative industrial development. Phase 2 delivers 825,000 square feet of Class A warehouse space across three buildings on 43 acres in the Southwest Phoenix submarket. With its completion, CapRock West 202 Logistics now totals 3.4 million square feet of modern
Fort Lauderdale may sit atop Marcus and Millichap’s 2026 multifamily rankings, but the real story is how a diverse mix of Sun Belt gateways and tech‑driven hubs are winning on the same fundamentals: tightening vacancy, sharply curtailed construction and renters effectively locked out of homeownership. Together, these forces are concentrating capital in a select group of markets where modest job gains, AI‑linked hiring and demographic tailwinds are still powerful enough to support rent growth even
Population growth slowed significantly across the United States between 2024 and 2025, thanks largely to a sharp drop in net international migration, the latest report from the U.S. Census Bureau shows. That trend held true in Arizona, as well, according to the Census Bureau’s Vintage 2025 population estimates released Tuesday. Even so, the Grand Canyon State remained one of the fastest-growing states in the nation
Consumers maintained robust spending in late 2025, according to new Bureau of Economic Analysis data released last week that had been delayed by the federal government shutdown. However, shoppers increasingly dipped into savings accounts to get through the holiday season, reducing the personal savings rate to a three-year low. And with year-over-year real spending growth outpacing disposable
The West Valley city of Goodyear is poised to get a new master-planned community near Estrella Mountain. Goodyear City Council approved a general plan amendment and rezoning request at a Jan. 26 meeting for Rio 1900 – a development proposed by Harvard Investments. The project would bring thousands of new homes and apartments, retail, dining and even a potential resort to the area near Estrella
Arizona is in the middle of another shift in how housing gets planned and built, and for real estate investors, one change worth paying close attention to is House Bill 2721, often referred to as the state’s “middle housing” law. In simple terms, HB 2721 – which went into effect on Jan. 1 – requires larger cities, including Phoenix, to allow certain small-scale multifamily housing types such as duplexes
On most headline metrics, institutional multifamily still looks healthy: demand is intact, rent growth has not collapsed and agency delinquency remains low by historical standards. Yet beneath those aggregates, a specific slice of loans is drawing attention inside credit committees and loan sale shops: the 2021–2022 vintages. Trepp’s research team has been flagging this cohort as the point where “post‑GFC conservative
The global retail giant is leasing a 1,063,188-square-foot building at West 202 Logistics – a sprawling industrial infill industrial project off the I-10 and Loop 202 interchange. Amazon currently leases millions of square feet across about three dozen facilities throughout the Phoenix metro for its warehousing and distribution operations. This new space is just west of downtown Phoenix
A manufacturer of distribution transformers has acquired a large industrial building in the Phoenix area with plans to open a new facility. Electric Research & Manufacturing Cooperative, also known as ERMCO, purchased the 566,121-square-foot distribution building in Waddell for $90.58 million, or $160 per square foot. Indicap and Invesco were the sellers of the property, which is located
Workers were not the only ones coming back to offices last year. Stable interest rates, improving supply-and-demand fundamentals and broader agreement on pricing underpinned a surge in building sales in the beleaguered sector. Office sales volume for 2025 was more than $56 billion, an increase of $10 billion from 2024, according to CoStar’s preliminary year
After several years of retreat, regional banks are dipping their toes back into commercial real estate lending—signaling fresh confidence as interest rates ease and underwriting tightens. The change marks a notable reversal from the pullback that followed the Federal Reserve’s rapid rate hikes in 2022, when looser underwriting standards and rising costs made CRE