The Southern California industrial market is well positioned toweather the economic storm set off by the global pandemic. Headinginto the current market dislocation, the industrial sector had lowvacancy and a limited new construction pipeline—and limited landfor new construction. Now, the pandemic has catalyzed a new wave ofecommerce activity, accelerating trends by a decade or more, someare estimating, and a lack of liquidity for new construction."Bottom line, industrial will come through this year stronger thanbefore," Kurt Strasmann, regional industrialmarket leader at CBRE, tells GlobeSt.com.

New ecommerce activity in particular will play a role inindustrial resilience through the next recovery cycle. "Theemergence of ecommerce plays in perfectly for industrial demand onmultiple levels, both cold storage and typical online sales fromfulfillment as well as onshoring," says Strasmann.

Social distancing and stay-at-home orders have only served toincrease online shopping. "While much of the data is preliminary, avariety of market observers have captured a striking increase ine-commerce, accelerating in mid-March as the nation's retailersbegan to close their doors," says Strasmann. "An acceleratedadoption of e-commerce could persist past the immediate crisis ifconsumers grow more comfortable buying a wider range of goods fromonline retailers. Already, many e-commerce companies are operatingat a greater capacity than peak holiday season with the biggestplayer in the field having announced plans to expand theirworkforce by 100,000 workers nationwide."