The economic slowdown has yet to dent the growth of the industrial market in Southern California's Inland Empire, which recorded overall net absorption of 5.3M in Q4 despite 7.8M SF of deliveries.

While there were indications—particularly in the West submarket—that occupiers downsizing footprints are impacting on warehouses in the 100K SF to 300K SF range, the overall market is being driven by the arrival of pre-leased mega-warehouses, according to Newmark's Q4 industrial market report.

Even with deliveries outpacing the growth of absorption in Inland Empire in the fourth quarter, the overall vacancy rate in the market—which early last year was as low as 0.4%—hovered at about 1.3%. Inland Empire is a region stretching from the LA city limits to the Arizona border, encompassing Riverside and San Bernardino counties, with an industrial inventory now totaling 677M SF.