Industrial Capital on the Move

 

By Brielle Scott, CAE for Market Share Blog | November 4, 2025

At I.CON Central in Columbus, Ohio, this week, Ashley Grigsby, managing director, capital markets, Transwestern, moderated a panel of experts who broke down what’s driving investment decisions, where capital is flowing, and how debt availability is shaping the landscape.

Joining Grigsby were Rob Huthnance, president, CT Realty; Stephen Lindley, senior vice president, investments, Ambrose; Chi Osu, head of U.S. logistics development, Mapletree; and Andy Weeks, chief development officer, VanTrust.

Grigsby asked Lindley, “Are you seeing any regional differences in tenant demand and absorption here within the Midwest market that are shaping your pipeline?”

“The short answer is yes,” he laughed.

“I’ll focus on the four markets where we do spend time, which [are] Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Columbus and Louisville,” he said. Lindley emphasized that while all Midwest markets experienced a post-COVID expansion, the scale and impact varied significantly. Markets like Indianapolis and Columbus saw a surge in new supply, while Louisville and Cincinnati expanded more modestly. This led to a period of imbalance between supply and demand, which developers have been working to correct over the past two years.

“I think everyone in the room [who is] a developer has some scar tissue from the mega-bulk product over the last 2 or 3 years, and we’ve stayed away from that while we continue to churn through that supply.”

“Louisville is probably the one market in the Midwest that’s already past the rebalancing phase and back into an expansion phase,” Lindley said, adding that there is about 9 million square feet of industrial product under construction in Louisville – the number two market for new construction in the Midwest behind Chicago, which has 12 million feet in development.

Indianapolis might be the most interesting market in the Midwest, Lindley said. “We were all sitting around a year ago talking about how long we thought it would get take to get through the pipeline in Indianapolis.” They guessed it would take three, four or even five years based on demand relative to supply.

Fast forward to today – there has been a massive uptick in leasing demand and activity in the Indianapolis market.