Small industrial leases, big impact for SA real estate

SAN ANTONIO – Between July and September of this year, leasing activity in the San Antonio area led to the net absorption of 112,605 sf of industrial space — pushing the year-to-date total to 948,142 sf.

Accounting for a large share of this activity were smaller tenants, NAI REOC San Antonio executives Kim Gatley and John Greg Turcotte said. These smaller players are users leasing from 10,000 to 30,000 sf.

Some of that activity has come by way of existing tenants expanding their footprint in the market — including International Paper, which increased its space by 18,675 sf at the Interchange East Distribution Center and Hollingsworth Logistics, which leased another 25,600 sf of space at Tri-County Distribution Center I.

The local industrial sector is currently posting a vacancy rate of 10.6 percent — marking the lowest vacancy rate on record since NAI REOC began tracking the 2000 industrial market.

At the end of third quarter 2012, the citywide, average quoted rental rate for the industrial sector stood at $5.63 per sf — an 8 cent increase from the average rent posted as of 3Q 2011.