Manufacturing is king
According to the National Association of Manufacturers’ (NAM) Colorado stats, total output from manufacturing was $25.15 billion in 2018, employing nearly 150,000 in our great state from just under 5,000 manufacturers in 2019. About 1/3 of those jobs are in the Aerospace Products and Parts category, by far the largest amount of jobs in the manufacturing sector. This translates to approximately 36,000,000 square feet occupied by these companies in the Denver Metro area alone…touching everyone’s life directly or indirectly.
Why do you care?
You probably know industrial and manufacturing companies are doing well as a whole, based on the general uptick of at-home purchasing during the pandemic. Our state and various counties focus heavily on aerospace, outdoor products companies, food and beverage, and the list goes on. Many of these items are shipped directly through Amazon, which has leased, 700,000 SF in Denver this year. Amazon is on track to hire 175,000 employees by year-end, all according to CoStar. This translates to 167,000,000 SF in Denver that is earmarked as “logistics” real estate.
This has created a domino effect, both good and bad, during this pandemic era. Over the last year, the growth in logistics real estate has carried the industrial sector into a slight uptick in rents. It gives one bright example of Denver becoming more integral in the strategic location goals of companies locally and across the county, propelling Denver into yet another step of continued industry diversification it has experienced in the last several decades, helping us weather any changes in the world and economy, around us.
Written by Tanner Mason, the Managing Broker at Benchmark Commercial. Call Tanner at 303-395-0112 or email him for more information at Tanner@crebenchmark.com.
* Information used in this piece was researched from CoStar, and more information can be found at https://costar.com/home.
