Industrial Influencers

The industrial asset class has not been as beleaguered as some other categories in commercial real estate but it still has posed challenges to the community. Fundamentals are softening and subleasing has gained currency in many locations as vacancies increase. This is not to say that the space is facing any long-term difficulties – next year many believe that the vacancies will drop once more as supply tightens. We have selected the following men, women, teams and companies as those best suited to help guide the industry through these times due to their skills and industry knowledge.

INDIVIDUALS

ADAM ABUSHAGUR Seeing the industrial sector as a challenge, Adam Abushagur decided it was where he wanted to focus his career. As a senior managing director of investments at Marcus & Millichap, Abushagur built a team and grew it more than tenfold during the past year. Taking the time to learn the market from the ground up has allowed him to become a trusted advisor and create one of the most active investment advisory teams specializing in industrial properties in the Southwest and Midwest. The team prepares analyses of clients’ properties, including opinions of value, market comparables and research. During the past several years, Abushagur and his team closed a total of 321 industrial transactions valued at more than $1.11 billion in total sales volume, and in 2022 alone, they closed 87 transactions valued at more than $300 million. He has received many accolades, including the Chairman’s Circle of Excellence award, Chairman’s Club award, national achievement award, sales recognition award, No. 1 office and industrial agent nationally and Top 10 Marcus & Millichap agent in Texas. Today, Abushagur ranks as the top industrial investment sales agent across Marcus & Millichap. Under Abushagur’s mentorship, the team conducted a Southwest region initiative for Marcus & Millichap agent assistants’ best practices and created a working client tracking system with successful implementation and measurable results within the Marcus & Millichap Dallas office. Abushagur’s philanthropic initiatives include the North Texas Food Bank and Feeding America’s Million Meals Initiative. He also is a regular contributor to organizations including VogelAlcove and Operation Smile. Abushagur attended New Mexico State University and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration in marketing.

KAITLIN ARDUINO Overseeing every aspect of Murphy Development Co.’s strategic acquisition, construction, development, leasing and disposition operations, president Kaitlin Arduino has led the firm to some big wins in recent years. MDC supplies biotech and life sciences, technology, manufacturing and logistics sectors with industrial and R&D spaces across San Diego. The firm’s projects include Otay Mesa, an expanding hub of cross-border trade, and Scripps Ranch, a technology, defense and biotech submarket. The company’s recent wins include the sale of more than $300 million in industrial and life sciences assets during the past 18 months. MDC’s mantra is to create corporate environments that provide a platform for companies to thrive, leveraging attention to design detail, extensive glass and lush landscaping that set the firm’s industrial buildings apart. Arduino’s father instilled these values in the company in the 1980s and she carries them forward today. In her early days at MDC, Arduino secured San Diego’s first business park-residential permitted zoning for Brown Field Tech Park, a 50-acre, master-planned corporate industrial development in Otay Mesa. She is now leading the final piece of development at BFTP Unit 2. In addition, Arduino secured a deal on behalf of MDC in the summer of 2022 in which Hines acquired a pair of class A industrial buildings within the northern half of BFTP totaling 229,680 square feet. She also led MDC’s reacquisition of more than half a million square feet of Otay Mesa’s “The Campus” at San Diego Business Park and its subsequent $15 million in renovations as well as the development of a third on-site building, and she led MDC’s development, construction and sale of a 144,000-square-foot life science shell building to Alexandria Real Estate at the Scripps Ranch Technology Park in December 2021.