JLL has fortified its industrial brokerage team in Los Angeles, one of the country's largest markets, by adding a group from a regional competitor.
Chicago-based JLL said it hired Jon Reno, Mark Vanis and Trevor Gale, and that each would serve as a managing director in the company's downtown Los Angeles office. They joined JLL from Kidder Mathews, where they worked as a team for more than five years.
At JLL, the team plans to continue to focus on representing institutional owners and occupiers of industrial real estate across greater Los Angeles.
Charlie Smith, a senior managing director and JLL's Los Angeles brokerage lead, said the firm added Reno, Vanis and Gale to grow its industrial business and help clients as demand for warehouses and distribution and fulfillment centers remains robust in the region.
“As the commercial real estate industry and economy has evolved over the past few years, we have seen a greater need for industrial real estate services in Los Angeles and throughout Southern California,” Smith said in a statement.
The Los Angeles industrial market, the third largest in the country behind Chicago and Eastern and Central Pennsylvania, had another strong performance in the first quarter, according to JLL. Overall vacancy stood at 0.6% as of March 31, JLL said in its first-quarter Los Angeles Industrial Insight report.
"Strong demand for industrial space persisted across the Los Angeles market in Q1’22, pushing vacancy to a new historic low," JLL said in the report. "Leasing activity from apparel, technology and logistics companies made up a bulk of the 5.5 million [square feet] of leasing volume this quarter. These industries took down significant blocks of space, leaving limited industrial space left for other prospective tenants."
As a result, landlords were able to increase asking rents for industrial properties "an astounding 45% year-over-year" because of the extremely low vacancy, according to the JLL report.
Los Angeles has the lowest vacancy rate among major industrial markets, according to a CoStar Market Analytics report.
JLL said the outlook for Los Angeles' industrial market is bright, especially for owners.
"Looking forward, we expect to see similar market conditions over the short to mid-term. Occupiers will continue to struggle to find available space, and should plan to engage in discussions well ahead of any lease expirations or net new requirements," the brokerage said in the report. "On the other side of the table, landlords will likely be able to continue to push rents as availability dwindles in L.A. and in the neighboring markets of the Inland Empire and Orange County."
The Reno-Vanis-Gale team has worked the greater Los Angeles industrial market for several years, with Reno having more than 22 years of experience in the region. Combined, the team has more than 60 years of experience in the industry and has completed transactions with an aggregate total of over $1 billion.
The team has been involved in several high-profile transactions, including Prologis' December 2020 acquisition of Greyhound’s aging bus station and garage on the edge of the Arts District. Prologis, which the Reno team represented in the transaction, agreed to lease the station back to Greyhound for two years before the industrial giant redevelops the site.