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Eastern Ruhr once again Germany's most dynamic logistics location in the 2018 annual ranking - the largest new construction activity in the fourth quarter is in the top logistics region of Nuremberg
The year 2018 closes with a sustained high development of new buildings of around 965,000 square metres in the period from October to December. This means that the dynamic pace of new construction has flattened slightly compared with the third quarter of 2018, but has increased by around 20 percent compared with a good 730,000 square meters in the same quarter of the previous year. With a total volume of around 76,000 square metres of logistics space, the top logistics region Nuremberg is the leader in the past quarter. The number one in the overall annual ranking remains the Eastern Ruhr area with over 320,000 square metres.
The German logistics real estate market set a new record last year with around 4.4 million square metres of newly created logistics space. In the previous year, the space volume was comparatively around 3.9 million square metres. "Looking at the last quarters, there has been a strong increase in new construction dynamics, as numerous major projects announced for 2018 are already in the implementation phase," reports Kuno Neumeier, Managing Director of Logivest GmbH. After around 260 logistics properties built in 2017, around 290 construction starts for new properties were recorded in 2018.
Logistics locations year-on-year: top position remains the same
With the exception of the first two places, the ranking of the most successful logistics regions shows changes. After an outstanding top position in 2017, the Eastern Ruhr Area with 320,000 square meters is once again in the lead - despite a 40 percent lower volume of new construction. The Rhine-Main region is also defending second place with an unchanged 300,000 square metres of built logistics space. On the other hand, the third-placed Cologne Bay is developing more dynamically in a year-on-year comparison: the volume of new buildings rose from around 190,000 to 275,000 square metres.
The Danube region with a jump of 12 places to ninth place and Leipzig/Halle with seven places to eighth place are among the biggest climbers in the ranking. By contrast, the Hamburg, Berlin/Brandenburg and Stuttgart regions were relatively less dynamic than in the previous year, falling by ten, seven and six places respectively.
Ranking of user groups: Industry increases for the first time
With regard to the existing user structure, the share of industry has increased significantly for the first time in a direct year-on-year comparison (26 percent in 2017) to around 31 percent. This shift is to the detriment of logistics service providers, who nevertheless make up the largest user group with 35 percent (in comparison: 41 percent in 2017) of new building space. At 34 percent, the retail sector remained virtually unchanged compared to 33 percent in 2017. "According to this, the ranking of the user structure remains largely unchanged year-on-year, but compared to the previous year there is a very balanced distribution of logistics space between the user groups," explains Kuno Neumeier.
