CHART OF THE MONTH: COLUMBUS HISTORICAL INDUSTRIAL VACANCY BY SIZE SEGMENT

Written by: Stephanie Morris

Stephanie specializes in research capabilities, providing support for the Colliers Columbus Office, Industrial, Retail and Capital Market groups. She is responsible for executing data reports, maintaining a commercial property database, reporting quarterly trends, performing data analysis, and utilizing statistical information to predict future behavior in the market. Keep reading for her take on historical industrial vacancy by size segment.

The Columbus industrial market saw shifting vacancy patterns across size segments over the past three years, with improvement beginning in Q1 2025.

Vacancy rates in buildings under 200,000 square feet remained stable throughout the period, consistently maintaining low vacancy. Buildings between 200,000 and 400,000 square feet experienced a moderate vacancy increase beginning in early 2023 before trending downward by Q1 2025. The 400,000 to 600,000 square feet segment witnessed a significant increase of approximately 13.7% in its vacancy rate between Q4 2022 and its peak in Q1 2024, coinciding with roughly 7.4 million square feet of speculative deliveries during that period.

The most notable shift occurred in the 600,000+ square foot category. Vacancy remained relatively tight until a sharp uptick began in Q3 2023, driven by large move-outs, including the former Big Lots space. By Q4 2024, this segment recorded the highest vacancy rate across the market.

Encouragingly, Q1 2025 brought quarter-over-quarter declines in vacancy across all size ranges. Buildings between 400,000 and 600,000 square feet led the recovery with a 2.3% drop in vacancy, signaling renewed tenant demand or a broader rebalancing of recent speculative supply.

Looking ahead, sustained leasing activity in big-box product will be key to further compression. While smaller segments are expected to remain stable, absorption of bulk space will likely dictate the pace of overall vacancy recovery through the second half of 2025.