It’s no surprise that expansion of the European logistics real estate market continued in 2018, with another strong year for occupier demand, lowest vacancy rates and long anticipated rent growth began to materialize. At the start of 2019 concerns increased around capital market volatility and potential impact to global GDP due to US-China trade tensions and Brexit. Even though the logistics real estate market ended 2018 on a strong note, some increased concerns at the start of the year raise the inevitable question: what can we expect in 2019? Prologis looked at the top trends influencing the market this year.

Logistics real estate rent growth remained considerable in 2018, with rents rising 6% globally. Consistent with the past several years, the U.S. outperformed, with 8% growth. However, other regions were just as notable. China was a clear leader with 8% growth. In Europe, rents rose 5%, a near doubling in growth from 2017 and the fastest annual growth in the region based on data reaching back more than 10 years, according to new research by Prologis.

Prologis has completed construction of two new speculative facilities totalling 25,300 square meters at Prologis Park Bratislava. The developments include 9,800 square meters in Building 14, of which 2,700 square meters are pre-leased to Electronic Star, an e-commerce retailer and 2,900 square meters to Blitshtein Trading, a food distributor serving major CEE markets, in addition to 15,500 square meters in Building 20.

Prologis announced that demand for space at its new Prologis Park Brno has prompted the construction of a second speculative facility at the Czech site.

Prologis has committed to a science-based target (SBT) to address the urgent action needed to curb climate change. Led by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), SBTs are an internationally recognized approach for helping companies create science-based goals for reducing GHG emissions.

Prologis has started development of a new 16,700 square meter facility at its fully occupied Prologis Park Wrocław V. The company has already signed the first pre-lease agreement for 6,000 square meters in the new building with a logistics operator in the aviation industry.

In the third paper of a three-part series looking at the future of logistics real estate, Prologis examined the implications for logistics property in light of emerging trends for transport, labour productivity and consumer behaviour. Prologis predicts these trends will create big efficiencies in supply chains and bring associated cost savings for users of logistics facilities – a proportion of which will go towards paying higher rents, especially for facilities located in urban infill areas, as this will lead to much higher efficiency gains.

Over the next six months, Prologis will bring to market nine modern, sustainable buildings in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. The developer currently has nine logistics facilities under construction in CEE totalling around 200,000 square meters of space.

Prologis has completed the sale of a high-quality portfolio of buildings and land in Europe and the United States to a Singapour-based Mapletree for $1.1 billion.

Prologis celebrated the topping out of the first facility at its new Prologis Park Łódź. The roof progress means construction of the 16,500 square meter building is on track for completion in early 2019. The park has the development potential for three facilities totalling 93,000 square meters.