Amazon In Buying Mode For Industrial Real Estate Again

After a two-year lull in activity, the world’s largest online retailer is in buying mode again for U.S. industrial space, and its shopping spree will likely have a major impact on the industrial marketplace.

Numerous industrial real estate experts said Amazon is increasing its requirements for warehouse space across the U.S. as it refines its logistics network and expands further into rural areas with distribution.

“I think we heard from them the amount of requirements in 2026 is 160% more than 2022,” Stonemont Financial Group Senior Vice President Neal Moskowitz said during a Bisnow industrial event in Atlanta last week. 

Amazon is expected to increase its U.S. footprint by 51M SF this year, up from an expansion of 39M SF in 2025, according to supply chain consulting firm MWPVL International. 

That growth isn’t restricted to the eastern U.S., either. Houston brokers also said at Bisnow’s Houston industrial summit last week that the e-commerce giant’s activity had picked up.

“Amazon’s in the market. They’re active out here again,” National Property Holdings’ Michael Plank said at the event. 

Domestically, the retail giant is focused on building out a cross-dock network of warehouses near ports to store and distribute products from China and other countries, MWPVL President Marc Wulfraat said. 

“What they’re doing now is they’re building out their inbound network,” Wulfraat said. 

Amazon is also expanding its rural delivery network, spending $4B to increase the number of warehouses serving rural areas to 201 by the end of 2026, a 200% increase in three years, according to Supply Chain Brain. 

Outside of the U.S., the retailer’s footprint is expected to expand by 20M SF this year, up from 12M SF in 2025. 

Amazon’s industrial growth was on hiatus in the last few years, cooling its heels after buying up as much warehouse space as possible during the pandemic. From 2019 to 2021, Amazon increased its global warehouse footprint by 453M SF, according to MWPVL. 

“‘If it looks like a warehouse, get it’ were the marching orders. They were spending like drunken sailors,” Wulfraat said.

In those three years, its buying behavior shaped the U.S. industrial market, creating a mad rush among its competitors to grab their own warehouse space before Amazon gobbled it up.

By 2023, however, Amazon was retreating from its industrial footprint, canceling development projects and putting nearly 100 facilities up for sublease that year.

As of July 2025, Amazon had around 1,600 industrial facilities globally, 80% of which were last-mile delivery stations, Green Street reported. It also leased 90% of its real estate footprint, according to Green Street.

Amazon declined to comment for this story. And the e-commerce giant’s preferred commercial real estate brokerage firm, KBC Advisors, didn’t respond to messages seeking comment.

Amazon’s return to the industrial market coincides with a revival of e-commerce retail sales in the U.S. Such sales in the fourth quarter reached more than $316B, a 5.3% year-over-year increase, according to the Census Bureau. That momentum continued in January, when online retail sales hit nearly $133B, an almost 11% jump from January 2025, according to Digital Commerce 360.

This time around, Amazon appears to be more deliberate in its approach to acquiring new warehouse space.

Price Muir, the founder of Atlanta-based industrial firm WPM Commercial, said Amazon is seeking some of the most modern warehouse spaces, favoring facilities with tall ceiling heights and ample power supply to build out automation in its warehouses.

“They’re buying modern warehouses with a ton of power to run all these automated things,” Muir said. “It used to be you just had to have enough power to turn on the lights overhead.”

Wulfraat said he expects Amazon to accelerate the expansion of its industrial footprint in 2027, especially as it expands its role as a third-party distributor for Chinese-based retail companies in the U.S. 

In essence, Amazon is taking products from Chinese companies, holding them in U.S. warehouses and then distributing them not only to Amazon customers but also to customers of Walmart and Shopify, he said. 

Muir said Amazon’s growing industrial footprint is akin to a retailer’s storefront empire, but at a fraction of the rent a retailer typically pays.

“Now they’re the de facto retailer, but instead of paying $80-per-SF rent at a retail location, they’re spending $5 per SF and then they’re spending another $10 per SF for their transportation costs,” he said. “They finally have the infrastructure to deliver.”