During the month of January 2023, the Ciudad Juárez market saw the start of nearly 21,000 square meters of new industrial buildings in the midst of a vacancy that continues to stand at half a percentage point.

These new buildings are added to those that were in progress and in total exceed 470,000 square meters, a historical construction figure if we evaluate the last four years of monitoring of the Solili platform.

See also: The start of new industrial buildings in Reynosa is urgent due to low speculative availability

Ciudad Juárez, like other border markets such as Tecate, Tijuana and Mexicali, have received strong pressure from tenants seeking to move their production processes closer to American territory. It is the border entities that have taken the greatest advantage of the nearshoring phenomenon and accumulate more than 57% of the volume of exports, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography in figures published at the end of the third quarter of 2022.

The strong accumulated gross demand in 2022 placed this market in fifth position at the national level, although it failed to exceed the accumulated gross demand during 2021. If we analyze the composition of the annual demand in 2022, just over 60% corresponds to speculative projects that quickly competed as an option for various interested parties seeking to close leases in order to secure the property.

During 2022, nearly half the number of closures correspond to warehouses of less than 10,000 square meters, although another size in great demand corresponded to warehouses between 10 and 20,000 square meters, which account for 45% of the traded areas.

These sizes that we could consider intermediate have been occupied by various companies dedicated to operating in the light manufacturing, logistics, construction, packaging, medical supplies and maquila sectors that have strengthened the industrial fabric of the last quarters in the region.

Of interest: The new offer of industrial projects in 2023 advances strongly

Various developers have shown their interest in increasing their presence in this market, as we recently saw with the announcement by American Industries (AI) that ratifies the progress of the second phase of the projects started in previous years and where they foresee an investment of 150 million dollars to be between Nuevo León and Chihuahua.

Developers will continue to focus during 2023 on finding options where their properties have sustainable water and energy sources in line with the environment, sustainability and governance (ASG) criteria currently demanded by tenants in these global markets.