The big-box surge
Thirty-eight leases of one million square feet or more were signed in the first half of 2026, more than double the number in the first half of 2025, according to CBRE's Q2 2026 US Industrial & Logistics Market Report published July 29. Leases of 700,000 square feet or more rose 125% year over year.
Total leasing activity reached 268.7 million square feet in the second quarter, up 11% year over year, bringing the first-half total to 547.9 million square feet, up 18%. Industrial vacancy fell 20 basis points from the prior quarter to 6.5% — CBRE's first recorded decline since the second quarter of 2022.
Manufacturers accounted for more than 12% of leasing activity, a rising share.
Concentration at the top end
Analysis: the numbers describe a market whose recovery is concentrated rather than broad. Overall leasing rose 18% in the first half while million-square-foot leases more than doubled and 700,000-square-foot-plus leases rose 125%. Growth at the largest size tier vastly outran the market average.
Only a specific class of tenant signs at that scale — national distribution networks, large-format retailers, and increasingly manufacturers. The rising manufacturer share points toward domestic production and supply-chain investment as a demand driver distinct from the e-commerce expansion that powered the sector's previous cycle.
The practical implication is uneven. Owners of modern large-format facilities in major logistics corridors are seeing genuine demand recovery. Owners of smaller or older infill product are not necessarily participating in the same market.
Three firms, three vacancy rates
Cushman & Wakefield's Q2 2026 US Industrial MarketBeat, published July 14, reported national vacancy of 6.9%, down 10 basis points on the quarter, with net absorption of 62.1 million square feet, up 21% from the first quarter, and year-to-date absorption of 113.6 million square feet — the strongest first half since 2023. Its trailing four-quarter absorption of 236 million square feet ran 17.3% above the 2023-2025 average of 201 million.
Lee & Associates' Q2 2026 national report, published September 10, gave a third figure: 7.5% vacancy with 44.4 million square feet of second-quarter net absorption.
The three readings — 6.5%, 6.9%, and 7.5% — span a full percentage point for the same quarter. Note also that CBRE's headline volume figure is gross leasing activity while Cushman & Wakefield's is net absorption; these measure different things and cannot be compared directly. One divergence worth flagging: Cushman & Wakefield reported the construction pipeline up 18% and above 300 million square feet for the first time in two years, which would eventually work against the vacancy declines all three firms recorded.
What rising construction would mean
The vacancy declines all three firms recorded were achieved against a supply pipeline that is expanding again, which is the tension in this quarter's data.
Cushman & Wakefield reported the construction pipeline up 18% and above 300 million square feet for the first time in two years. Industrial buildings deliver faster than most property types — often within twelve to eighteen months of groundbreaking — so that pipeline reaches the market relatively quickly.
Analysis: the sector spent 2022 through 2025 absorbing an earlier construction wave, and vacancy rose throughout. A renewed pipeline of that scale, arriving into a market where absorption is concentrated in large-format leases by a narrow set of tenants, reintroduces the same risk.
The mitigating factor is what is being built and for whom. Demand at the million-square-foot tier is frequently satisfied by build-to-suit development rather than speculative construction, and pre-committed space does not add to vacancy on delivery. The share of the pipeline that is pre-leased, not its size, determines whether the vacancy trend survives.