Developers Are Back to Building U.S. Warehouses
The Wall Street Journal reported on 15 July 2026 that warehouse developers have started breaking ground again after a two year pause. Cushman & Wakefield put the amount of US warehouse space under construction in the second quarter at more than 305 million square feet, 18% higher than a year earlier and the second straight quarter of annual growth, against a peak above 725 million square feet reached in the third quarter of 2022. Prologis said it expects to begin between $4.5 billion and $5.5 billion of development this year, compared with $3.1 billion last year, and expects about 40% of those starts to be data centers. Demand is coming from retailers building inventory ahead of possible tariff changes, manufacturers moving operations into the US, third party logistics providers taking on outsourced fulfillment, and the operators and component suppliers behind the data center build out.
A construction pipeline is fit-out budget specified before a pallet moves: racking, material handling, WMS, power, dock equipment and the labour plan around them. Two details matter for a buyer planning a network change. Developers are following signed demand rather than building ahead of it, so speculative space will be thinner when a node is needed quickly. And data centre operators are bidding for the same buildings, which is a different industry with different economics sitting across the table.