Big rent premiums highlight how demand for airport-adjacent warehouses has taken off

Pressure to provide quick delivery of electric machinery, jewels, pharmaceuticals and other products has fueled demand for airport-adjacent warehouses and pushed rents in those submarkets to sizeable premiums, according to a new report from CBRE.

An analysis by CBRE found that average rents for warehouses within a five-mile radius of major airports are 18.8 percent higher than the average for their metropolitan areas. The analysis spanned the 20 busiest U.S. airports for airfreight.

Warehouses in close proximity to major airports are coveted by shippers needing to use the speed of airfreight to transport high-dollar goods packaged in small enough sizes and quantities to fit on airplanes. Supply of such warehouses is limited in many dense airport submarkets like those around John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, Los Angeles International Airport and Miami International Airport.

“The immediacy of e-commerce deliveries and the generally faster pace of business than in past decades, among other factors, have made airport warehouses a critical link in many supply chains,” said John Morris, CBRE Americas President of Industrial & Logistics. “Rents for these properties will continue to exceed their market averages for the foreseeable future.”

CBRE found that the largest share – 42.7 percent - of leasing activity in airport-warehouse markets so far this year was done by third-party-logistics companies. That’s a greater share than 3PLs claim of overall U.S. warehouse leasing, 35.6 percent. The reason: Shippers, retailers and other companies often hire 3PLs to handle shipping of small-lot goods via high-cost airfreight.

The second largest share of leasing activity near airports went to general retail and wholesale companies at 32.2 percent. Food and beverage companies are a distant third at 5.2 percent.