Listen to this articleAsking lease rates for industrial space in Portland slipped 3.4 percent to $0.84 per square foot, while vacancies grew to 4.7 percent, according to Kidder Mathews’ third-quarter industrial market update.
“It just continues to be a choppy market,” said Scott Murphy, executive vice president for Kidder Mathews in Portland. “There’s not a uniform, widespread trend.”
The market differs by location, with suburban markets stronger than in the Northeast Portland industrial belt, Murphy said.
“There are some neighborhoods, some submarkets, that are really strong — Sunset Corridor, I-5 South, really, outside of Portland,” he said.
Net absorption was positive during the third quarter, for the first time in a year, with 113,100 square feet taken. That was offset by new deliveries — “a trend that could continue due to the high quantity of quality properties in the construction pipeline,” Kidder Mathews’ report stated.
Approximately 5.5 million square feet of industrial space is expected to deliver by next summer, Murphy said. That includes 1.2 million square feet at an industrial park in Clark County, Washington, and space in Sandy Logistics and the Portland Portal Industrial Center in Northeast Portland, the Meadowlark Industrial Center in Cornelius, and in Tualatin-Sherwood.