I recently had the enjoyment of sitting down with my esteemed colleague and friend, Chad Griffiths, Partner at NAI Commercial, and Gerald Tostowaryk, host of The Real World of Real Estate podcast, to discuss the past year and our upcoming projections for the Alberta industrial real estate market.

It wasn’t so long ago that the Edmonton sub-markets of Nisku and Leduc were hailed as the oil and gas heartbeat of the Region. These industrial parks established themselves as the incubators for oil and gas manufacturers, service providers, fabricators, transporters, and many others, aiding in growing our Province’s resource production to all time highs. Edmonton is the capital of the North, but Nisku and Leduc are among the workhorses that allowed the real North to be developed.

In an article published today by the Financial Post, Earnest Research has analyzed debit and credit transaction data to reveal that 89% of all holiday spending, beginning after American Thanksgiving and ending at Christmas, was captured by the retail giant Amazon.  The close second?  Wal-Mart at a whopping 4.4%.  

After months, or rather years, of doom and gloom for the derelict malls that encompass huge swaths of land in our urban epicenters, a pathway has presented itself for the landowners of these properties.  One solution to the woes of these Class B and C malls is their conversion into warehouse space for the ever growing and expanding E-Commerce market.

As urban cities continue to grow in population and expense, and the availability of warehousing  space continues to diminish, developers are being forced to look at alternative options to counter increasing industrial land prices and lease rates.  The solution:  build upwards, not outwards.