In brief: Industrial vacancy in the largest US port markets rose to a record 7.7% through July, even as it fell in the rest of the country and port imports held steady.
Implications:
Leverage: If your lease near a port is up in the next year, you have more buildings to choose from and more room to push on rent.
Short window: Rents are already falling in the Inland Empire and New Jersey, but they’re forecast to rise more than 5% in Los Angeles, Savannah and Charleston by 2028.
Buyers are moving: Amazon bought a 1 million sq ft building in Savannah in Q3.
The News
Industrial vacancy in the largest US port markets rose to a record 7.7% through July, up 0.2 points from the end of 2025, according to Cushman & Wakefield. Over the same stretch, vacancy in the rest of the country fell 0.2 points. Across the whole country, the rate was 6.8% in the third quarter, the lowest since the end of 2024.
The empty space near the docks isn’t from a lack of cargo. Imports at the 10 biggest US ports rose 0.5% from a year earlier through July, to more than 14.5 million TEUs, so the boxes are still arriving even as fewer tenants want to store them nearby. “Cargo volumes tell only part of the warehouse demand story,” said Jason Price, who heads logistics and industrial research for the Americas at Cushman & Wakefield.
Why It Matters
The warehouses that hold imports are moving inland, away from the docks.
Inland share: Inland markets took 83% of US industrial demand in the first half of 2026, their highest share since 2010, because labor, rent and energy cost less there and more goods arrive from Mexico by rail and truck.
Import origins: Imports from China fell 23% in the first half, while imports from Mexico, Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand rose.
Too much space near ports: Builders kept adding space anyway, so new supply outpaced demand in nine of the 14 largest North American port markets over the past year.
By The Numbers
Third-quarter vacancy and asking rents in the big port markets show how uneven the slack is:
Inland Empire: vacancy of 8.0%, with asking rents down 9.9% from a year earlier.
New Jersey: vacancy of 8.1%, with asking rents down 4.0% to $16.12 per sq ft, even as tenants took a net 4.8 million sq ft, the most of any quarter this year.
Savannah: vacancy of 10.0%, the highest of the four, yet asking rents rose 4.4% and 5.1 million sq ft is still under construction.
Los Angeles: vacancy of 6.7%, below the national rate.
North of the border, Vancouver led Canadian port markets with a net 2 million sq ft taken, while Cushman & Wakefield expects rents in Montreal to stay flat or fall.
Who Else
Large tenants are using the slack. New leases of 300,000 sq ft or more rose 70% from a year earlier in the first half of 2026, led by 3PLs and manufacturers, and in New Jersey, Dunlop preleased a 333,580 sq ft building in Robbinsville before it was finished. Maersk took over Puma’s US warehouses and opened one to other brands. Space close to cities is a different market: Bridge raised $1.4 billion to buy infill warehouses there, where space is still scarce.
Room for Disagreement
Prologis, the warehouse owner, says the slack is closing. “Customers are running lean on inventory, and excess capacity within their networks has largely cleared,” CEO Daniel Letter said in the company’s third-quarter results. A year ago, Prologis forecast that coastal markets such as the Inland Empire and New Jersey would recover in 2026 as customers moved inventory closer to consumers to cut transportation costs.
What’s Next
Through 2028: Cushman & Wakefield expects rent growth above 5% in seven of 13 key port markets, led by Hampton Roads, Los Angeles, Savannah and Charleston, and flat or falling rents in Miami, Montreal and Oakland-East Bay.
Rest of 2026: The National Retail Federation expects full-year imports to finish about 1% above 2025.
