The NAIOP Research Foundation commissioned this report to provide the real estate development community with insight into current and future trends in building and logistics technologies and their implications for industrial real estate. Steve Weikal and James Robert Scott, researchers at the MIT Real Estate Innovation Lab, interviewed professionals specializing in industrial building design and automated systems to identify emerging trends that will be of interest to industrial developers, building owners and tenants.

The NAIOP Research Foundation commissioned this report to examine how local governments are preparing for fully autonomous vehicles and to explore how future AV related policies could affect the commercial real estate industry.

The NAIOP Research Foundation commissioned this report to explore some of the contributing factors to the workforce shortage and how the construction and logistics industries can improve worker recruitment, training, productivity and retention.

This whitepaper addresses trends and strategies needed and how the retail experience will change over the next five years.

Rising fuel costs have caused freight transportation to become the largest, most volatile cost component of companies' supply chain/logistics operation, accounting for about 63 percent of total U.S. logistics costs and 6 percent of GDP. With companies under mounting pressure to contain or offset the increases in freight transportation costs, supply chain executives have been tasked with figuring out how to squeeze more capacity and efficiency out of the existing systems.

This white paper looked at significant logistics drivers which may impact industrial space over the next 10 years, including an analysis of which ports will benefit by the expansion of the Panama Canal and how this will affect local, regional and inland industrial space in the distribution sector.

This research project identified the logistics trends and specific industries that will drive warehouse and distribution growth and demand for space over the next decade (2008-2018). Research is based on employee ratios, employment reports, and logistics building inventory.

The report provides strategic intelligence regarding the most significant trends shaping industrial markets across North America. Trends and issues influencing warehousing are covered, including NAFTA; the Panama Canal expansion; the role of major ports and South American growth in import and export.

The report focuses on nine container ports on the nation’s East and South coasts: the East Coast ports of New York and New Jersey and Baltimore; the Southeast ports of Virginia, Charleston and Savannah; the Florida ports of Miami, Jacksonville and Everglades; and the Gulf port of Houston.