The latest Dublin industrial market report from agent JLL confirms the strong turnaround in the sector with record take-up recorded over the course of 2015.

JLL says year-end take-up for industrials came in at a whopping 390,557sq m (more than 4.203 million sq ft) which was well over a third higher than the previous market peak in 2007 and almost double the 2006 level.

Industrial take-up bottomed out in the 2009-2011 period with levels of about 139,355sq m (1.5 million sq ft) but has shown steady growth since. However, take-up in 2015 jumped 44 per cent on 2014 levels, underpinned by strong recovery in the domestic economy.

Strong demand for industrial space continued into the last quarter of 2015, according to Hannah Dwyer, associate director and head of research at JLL. "Take-up for Q4 was 97,462sq m (1,049,071sq ft) across 50 deals and there were six transactions greater than 4,645sq m (50,000sq ft)," she says. Some 68 per cent of Q4 deals were for space less than 1,858sq m (20,000sq ft) and the average deal was 1,938sq m (20,865sq ft)."

Demand drivers

JLL predicts industrial take-up will moderate in 2016 to 278,709sq m (three million sq ft) with demand likely to be driven by multinationals, particularly those linked to online retailing distribution, pharmaceuticals and data centres.

“This is likely to cause further rental growth,” says Ms Dwyer. “We are forecasting prime rents will reach €94.20 per sq m (€8.75 per sq ft) by the year-end and we may see some degree of limited speculative development . . . There are only a limited number of developers who will be in a position to take this step.”