b'2American Journal of Transportation ajot.comE-commerce growth pushes investors toWarehousing and infill properties Distribution 2021Scarcity of available sites sends industrial real estate rents soaring and sticker shock is setting in.By Peter Buxbaum, AJOTE-commerce sales in thestrategyisfocusedontwo United States are projected torelatedprongs:acquiring increase by over $200 billionpropertiesnearWestCoast by 2025, according to a recentand East Coast seaports and reportfromCenterPoint,akeeping an eye out for infill majorinvestorinindustrialproperties. Many companies real estate. Every increase ofwouldprefertostoreaddi-$1 billion in e-commerce rev- tional inventory near ports of enues, the report went on toentry, according to the CBRE conclude,generatesdemandreport, explaining that aspect for1.25millionsquarefeetof the strategy. The problem of additional industrial space.is that little warehouse space Thesefiguressuggest(INFILLcontinued on that some quarter of a billionpage 4) Averitt opens new 400,000 square foot distribution center near Dallas. (see page 6)squarefeetofnewe-com-merceindustrialspacewill be required in the U.S. over the next four years, a conser-vative estimate compared to theone-billionsquare-foot projection reached by another real-estate maven, JLL. That explainswhyinvestorslike CenterPoint are on a buying spree, snapping up desirable parcelsand where they are acquiringthisrealestate. E-commerce,withitsever-tighteningdeliveryexpecta-tions,requiresthatsmallish facilities be located in popu-lationcenters,andthatis wheremanyinvestorsare focusing their efforts.With investors on an acqui-sition binge, its not surprising that industrial real estate rents are on the increase. The spik-ing demand for e-commerce storagespaceisstartingto equalize retail and industrial rents,accordingtoGillam Campbell,researchmanager forU.S.industrialproperty at JLL. In the last ten years, shesaid,retailrentshave increased19.6%,whilethe industrial sector experienced a 57.1% hike.2019 saw the beginning of the rent compression, which coincides with a big jump in e-commercesshareofretail sales, Campbell explained. Increaseddemandfor warehousingspaceisalso being pushed by other condi-tions, such as the rush to replen-ish stocks depleted during the COVID-19 pandemic and the desire to buffer inventories in the face of potential future sup-ply-chain dislocations. Supply chain volatility, noted a recent reportfromCBREResearch, further heightens the need for additional warehouse space to stockpilegoodsandmitigate futuredisruptions.Atrend towardshorter,moreresilient supplychainshasgathered pace over the past year.C oastals trategy andI nfIlls CenterPointsacquisitions'