Amazon alone helped to pushdown the industrial vacancy rate in Orange County even further.According to a recent market report from Newmark KnightFrank, Amazon signed nearly 1 million square feet ofindustrial leases in 2019, helping to keep the industrial vacancyrate below 4% for the 25^th consecutive quarter.

"Amazon had a tremendous impact on the overall industrial marketin 2019, having finalized nearly 1 million square feet of leases inthree transactions alone during the calendar year," JeffRead, executive managing director at NKF, tellsGlobeSt.com. "Not surprisingly, Amazon was responsible for amajority of the overall absorption for the year as they execute ontheir push to satisfy "last-mile" distribution to consumers inmature infill markets like Orange County. Based uponmultiple pending transactions, we anticipate that Amazon will havea similar impact on industrial absorption in 2020 as well."

It isn't only Amazon. Ecommerce companies overall are drivingthe industrial leasing activity in Orange County; however, theyaren't the only players for industrial, particularly in smallersize ranges. "Generally speaking, yes, ecommerce-oriented usersmade up the majority of activity throughout the year, across allsize ranges," Read says. "While Amazon and other large corporateusers impacted the market for buildings in the size range 50,000square feet and greater, we saw significant activity from smaller,"mom and pop" ecommerce businesses in the size range 25,000 squarefeet and smaller."