Industrial Rents Near JFK Eclipse $30 Per SF For First Time As New Terminals Come Online

Companies catering in-flight meals and supporting airline operations are running out of options for warehouses near John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Industrial tenants signed almost 770K SF in submarkets serving the airport in 2025, representing a 63.4% year-over-year increase, according to a Q4 Cushman & Wakefield report. Asking rents for triple-net leases eclipsed $30 per SF for the first time in the market’s history, with no new construction underway.

“These properties are in an irreplaceable location,” Seagis Property Group Vice President of Leasing Jane Finkenstaedt said. “The fundamentals remain very strong, and the growth and redevelopment of the airport is only going to help that.”

The submarket’s vacancy peaked at almost 7% in 2024 and is now back down to levels close to 2023 at 6.4%, according to Cushman & Wakefield data.

That's markedly below the citywide vacancy rate of 8.8% at the end of last year, after developers delivered 4.1M SF of industrial in 2024 and 2025, which was mostly vacant at the end of last year, according to Colliers.

JFK Airport is the busiest airport in the U.S. for low-value international e-commerce packages, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It was also the ninth-busiest cargo airport in the country in 2024, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

With the airport’s new cargo terminal opening last year and plans for more renovated commercial terminals to open between 2026 and 2030, the submarket’s rent growth is likely to keep moving skyward, Finkenstaedt said. 

Seagis owns 46 industrial properties in Springfield Gardens, which borders JFK to the north and where the majority of tenants are either in logistics for the cargo coming through the airport or provide services for commercial flights. 

To accommodate its expected growth, the airport’s $19B redevelopment included a new, 350K SF cargo facility on the tarmac — its first in 25 years — that opened last April. It replaced two older facilities and is part of the airport’s cargo space consolidation plan, which the Port Authority has said will free up land for future development.

Outside of the Port Authority-owned space within JFK, nearby submarkets that serve the airport combined have roughly 7M SF of industrial space for the nearly 1.7 million tons of cargo that passed through the airport in 2024, Finkenstaedt said.

That’s not a lot of space for that much cargo, Finkenstaedt said. By comparison, Miami International Airport’s Doral West submarket has 10 times as much space for the 3.5 million tons it saw last year, she said.

And, as is often the case in New York City, all of the infrastructure needed to handle that many packages and people is squeezed.

“It's amazing how much cargo moves through such a tight pocket,” Finkenstaedt said.

Consequently, vacancy rates in the submarkets that serve JFK — South Jamaica and Springfield Gardens in Queens, which both directly border JFK, and Inwood in Nassau County, accessible via Rockaway Boulevard — fell by 40 basis points last year, according to Cushman & Wakefield data. 

“Just like users that will pay the premium to be in Long Island City because of its proximity to Midtown Manhattan, we very much have that same dynamic out at the airport at JFK,” said Cushman & Wakefield's Helen Paul, co-lead for NYC logistics and industrial services.

Demand will remain consistent because third-party logistics companies and travel infrastructure groups — like Revel, which took 10K SF in 2024 for electric vehicle charging — are always looking for industrial space next to the airport, Paul said.

Last month, airplane servicing company ASAK Solutions leased 17K SF in South Jamaica with asking rents of $28 per SF. In the same week, airline catering company Gate Gourmet inked a 63K SF lease at Onyx Equities' Inwood Logistics Center campus, although asking rents weren't disclosed.

The demand means more competition for acquisitions, Finkenstaedt said.

But Seagis' most recent industrial purchase in the submarket was $16.8M for a 70K SF, six-building portfolio deal in 2018. The reason it hasn’t bought anything since is because there is no inventory left to buy, Finkenstaedt said. 

“When we first came into JFK, it was a lot of local families,” she said. “Now, it's mainly institutional like Prologis, Terreno, Deutsche Bank. There's not many local owners left.”

The only development that was recently underway in the three markets is CenterPoint Properties’ two-story, 129K SF facility at 65 Rason Road. The building is fully occupied by FedEx.

When there’s no space left in South Jamaica, Springfield Gardens and Inwood, potential tenants will be forced out to East New York in Brooklyn.

LoopNet lists 20 industrial spaces available for lease spanning 1K SF to 91K SF, but the submarket takes roughly 20 minutes to drive to without traffic and may not appeal to businesses that need to be on the tarmac in a matter of seconds. 

Still, demand for industrial space next to the airport is only likely to grow, Finkenstaedt said. 

“The city's making a big investment in that airport,” she said. “It will only prove to make JFK a more attractive place for companies to do business, and when they are doing business there, they'll likely need space next to the airport.”