Industrial Vacancy Report Breakfast
The Property Council’s 2016 Brisbane Industrial Vacancy Report was launched on Friday 20 May with an industry breakfast at the Sofitel Hotel.
Despite a declining manufacturing sector, the report has found that Brisbane is enjoying low vacancy rates in industrial property. The report’s headline figure is an average vacancy rate of 5% of properties and 3.9% of floorspace across the four Brisbane study areas.
Michael Campbell, Senior Consultant – AEC Group, presented the results of the vacancy report and painted the broader economic picture of the factors contributing to these results. Michael outlined that port container movements continue to increase, including 2% growth this year, driving movement in logistics and warehousing demand. Despite growth in jobs numbers, most of these are part time jobs and are not leading to the boost in economic confidence required to drive significant economic growth.
Michael Callow, Director at Cushman & Wakefield, illustrated how the vacancy report reflects a ‘flight to quality’ that has been recently experienced with tenants looking to upgrade to newer facilities. Michael outlined that the changing needs of logistics and warehousing activities is driving a change in demand and particularly driving an increased demand for taller buildings. There has also been a noticeable increase in demand for sites with good access to motorways and ports. In this market context, owners of B and C grade properties are proactively repositioning them to attract tenants.
Both Michaels were joined on stage for a panel discussion by Anna Patterson, Industrial Regional Portfolio Manager from Charter Hall, which was moderated by FKG Group’s Justin Sherlock. The panel looked beyond the report’s numbers to illustrate what is really happening in the industrial property market. Anna pointed to increase in automation and tenant’s environmental requests as growing trends for the industrial sector. Incentives were identified as a new feature of the industrial tenancy market which is quickly becoming a core offering.
The Property Council would like to thank RCP for their generous support of the Industrial Vacancy Report Breakfast, and the speakers for sharing their insights.
The full Industrial Vacancy Report can be downloaded here.
Photos from the event can be found here.
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