The great growth of the industrial real estate market in 2020 and so far in 2021 has been driven by the appearance of Covid-19 and the subsequent consequences of global confinement.

Life habits and consumption patterns have rapidly changed to the adoption of new technologies and have generated changes in demand habits, citing, for example, the immediacy that consumers now demand in delivery time together with the sophisticated and wide range of options in products and services they require.

Confined families demand many more products and services that reach the door of their homes, as indicated by the great increase in telephony, internet, entertainment platforms, e-commerce services, to name a few.

On the supply side, Mexico exhibited, prior to the pandemic, a benchmark industrial market in Latin America that, due to its proximity to the United States, already had a high degree of development in various cities such as the country's capital, Monterrey, Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez and Guanajuato, among many others. These 5 cities represent about 63% of inventories according to figures reported by Solili as of July 2021.

Sectors such as manufacturing, logistics, automotive and electronic commerce are advancing, demanding not only more space but also configurations and adaptations that constitute a challenge for institutional developers that cover the Mexican geography.

Check here: Investors have their sights set on the country's industrial real estate segment

We have seen taller industrial buildings being built, where the size greater than 12 meters and the configurations of large internal dimensions, which exceed 90 thousand square meters, become the standard of the distribution centers that the large logistics centers require that make life in the country.

At the same time, the loading and unloading areas must allow to quickly transport a product unloaded from an arrival transport to a departure vehicle and this requires larger platforms with increasingly sophisticated lifting equipment, as well as maneuvering yards with turning radius efficient.

Institutional developers used to elaborate these spaces under BTS configurations or made to measure, following specifications of a particular client. Currently we have noticed a greater penetration of speculative projects in dimensions that were not previously seen.

Another characteristic of recent observation is a more risky offer in terms of portfolio distribution, by groups previously focused on a single region. 

In parallel, the largest participants in this industry are continuously evaluating their indicators and fine-tuning their portfolio strategies, which is why we observe significant movements in new acquisitions so far in 2021.

Warehouses and storage and distribution facilities near the peripheries of large cities have been showing solutions that are usually seen on a larger amount of land.

Of interest: Bajío Region shows signs of recovery in industrial demand

The scarcity of land determines the modern vertical storage solutions typical of more developed cities. These concepts permeate the industrial buildings observed in the development of the last mile common in our T-MEC partners, such as the United States and Canada.

Another global trend that is already advancing in the Mexican market is the adoption of construction processes and techniques that allow incorporating elements of sustainability in modern buildings that are being built today in search of reducing the carbon footprint and CO2 emissions.

The electricity supply via solar cells aims to reduce energy consumption by significant percentages, followed by facilities and equipment to optimize the use of white water and the disposal of waste water.

Together with this, optimizing the quality of interior environments that seek to improve the health of workers, who face the pandemic from their workplaces, requires the incorporation of new materials where innovation becomes a determining factor in design.

All these new ways of understanding the process of conceptualizing and building industrial buildings affect the existence of Mexican industrial parks that are increasingly competitive and in accordance with the current requirements of the global industrial space applicants.