Ripe For Spec

September 13, 2012 | 8:00 am ET Staff Reporter

Quick, can you guess which CRE sector would prompt us to write that headline? Here's a hint: we heard someone say it at Association of Industrial Real Estate Brokers annual trade show in Bloomingdale yesterday. Still not sure? Then we want to play poker with you.

McShane VP Dan Fogarty, here with development manager Amy Rzepka, was the one talking spec for industrial development. Because of supply chain consolidation and other factors, the demand is there, while the supply, especially for larger blocks of space, isn’t. In fact, McShane will be breaking ground soon on a spec industrial project in metro Chicago, though he says it's too soon to give us any details. Other projects are in the works as well. “On the whole, we’re bullish,” Dan says.

Liberty Property Trust VP Neal Driscoll, flanked by Cawley Chicago Commercial’s Terry Grapenthin and Joshua Hearne, agrees that the market’s short on the space that’s in demand. So Liberty is in acquisition mode in Chicago. It has two large properties under contract, and Neal tells us the company’s total ownership in the market will rise to around 8M SF by the end of this year.

Trade shows are great because if we can't read our notes, the name of each person's employer is always on a large sign behind them. We caught up with Venture One Real Estate principals Matt Goode, Roy Splansky, and Mark Goode, who tell us that they, too, are in an acquisition mode. Good properties are available (sometimes from banks), interest rates are low, and demand for space is picking up. Venture One’s largest acquisition this year—in fact one of the largest in the market by anyone in recent years—was 350 acres at Park 88 in DeKalb in a JV with Clayco, bought from Citizens First National Bank. And the company’s looking for more space in the I-39 corridor and elsewhere.

Ripe For Spec

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