Central Ohio's Warehouse Boom Enters Its Awkward Middle Age

For most of the past decade, central Ohio could not build warehouses fast enough. Its position within a day's drive of a huge share of the U.S. population made it a natural distribution hub, and speculative construction followed. Now the region is entering a more complicated phase, with softer demand and a visible glut of space built on the assumption that tenants would always appear.

Vacancy in some submarkets has crept up as leasing slows, and developers who broke ground during the boom are competing on incentives to fill buildings. That is good news for tenants and a headache for landlords who underwrote aggressive rent growth.

Logistics executives caution against reading too much into a single soft stretch. The structural advantages that made central Ohio attractive have not disappeared. But the era when any warehouse would lease itself is clearly over.