Capital Continues to Chase Opportunity in Industrial

Jonathan Rollins for Market Share Blog | May 21, 2026

The consensus among a panel of experts discussing capital markets and industrial investment trends at I.CON East this week in Jersey City, New Jersey, is that the industrial market remains healthy and full of opportunities.

Moderator Eric Foster, co-lead of industrial capital markets at Avison Young, led the discussion, asking panelists to share their perspectives on “where people are spending money, and how they’re sometimes maybe not spending money, in the industrial asset landscape.”

Craig Cowie, senior managing director at Affinius Capital, said that industrial has repriced aggressively and quickly. “We’re seeing development spreads that are really, really healthy on a relative basis.” He noted that it’s been tougher to compete on acquisitions compared to ground-up development, “but we’re seeing exceptionally healthy flow on what I would call infill bespoke opportunities for industrial. So it’s not one-size-fits all. It’s not one major market, but we’re finding incredible opportunities and pulling the trigger where we can.”

Similarly, Brian Tilton, managing director, portfolio management at Nuveen, said his company is “seeing compelling opportunities to pursue development across our buckets of capital” that invest in industrial. He noted Nuveen recently closed on two infill, airport-adjacent development sites where they tore down Class C office buildings and are building LEED-certified, Class A multitenant light industrial.

Andrew Goodman, senior managing director, Link Logistics Real Estate, said he considers the market “very healthy, very functional. We are buying and selling a lot.” In terms of current capital market activity, “there’s a lot of equity out there that continues to want to be deployed into real estate, into logistics. Debt is readily available, all different types of debt … so capitalizing deals is really not an issue.”

On the deployment side, Goodman noted that “it’s really been a basis play many times because as rents reset and many markets reset and recalibrate, you are able to get in at a per-square-foot value that’s below replacement cost, that feels good historically, and has good leasing demand.”

Foster noted there had been a general lack of development over the past couple of years. “What I am seeing and what we’re forecasting is a real potential landlord’s market getting even stronger.” He asked what Tilton expects for future rents and vacancies as he underwrites assets. “Do you think we’re going to be back to the days where you could really push rents, and a lot of space will be absorbed in the next year or so?”

“From an underwriting standpoint, we tend to be fairly conservative across the board, across strategies,” Tilton said. “Our team has not materially changed their underwriting over the past six to 12 months. … We tend to underwrite 3% rent growth but spend a lot of time focusing [on] utilizing our dataset to try to identify where current spot rents are and where we think we’re going to be relative to market at exit.”

“On the coast, it’s more dependent on where in-place rents are relative to market. … But where we’ve been focusing on recycling capital has been to those interior, noncoastal markets.”

Foster also asked about tenant demand and whether tenants are changing their logistics plans, especially given the impact of artificial intelligence and the growth of manufacturing in the United States.