C&W PACKS & SHIPS

August 31, 2011 | 8:00 am ET Staff Reporter

Thanks to Crate & Barrel founder Gordon Segal, none of us have to register for granny dishes when we get married anymore. Gordon, the keynote speaker at Cushman & Wakefield's Industrial Summit late last week, says that he's traveled around Europe and Asia to find some of the best designs and bring them to us commoners via his new LEED Gold distribution center in California. He started the business in 1962 in Chicago's Old Town, where products were actually displayed on crates and barrels. That's no longer the display tactic for the chain's 110 stores around the US, Canada, and Dubai, but Gordon is trying to manage the store footprint, which grew after he added furniture to his products. One space-saving step: stacking. Gordon says he wants the stores to feel a little like a "supermarket for design." (Make sure it's exactly like a supermarket and put your fruit paintings right in the front.)

Cushman & Wakefield's Jim Dieter says the firm is really on a roll this year with 4,800 transactions and 1,231 new hires in the first six months of 2011. Leaders in the industrial market include Chicago and Ontario, where six caps have become popular this year. Nationally, industrial vacancies have dropped to just 10.4%, Jim tells us. Maybe that will mean new construction soon.

C&W head of capital markets Greg Vorwaller (we promise he's not reading notes off his hand) says that nationwide, imports will shift toward the East Coast with the widening of the Panama Canal. That will mean a rise in B-quality assets in some markets, as well as the emergence of new top markets along the right coast. Surprisingly, Texas markets haven't exceeded others in the industrial markets despite their growing economics, Greg says. It's due to a lack of demand for new industrial product in those markets.

C&W PACKS & SHIPS

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