European logistics market is set for another year of growth, as companies ramp up capacity to meet booming e-commerce delivery demand and nearshoring activities to navigate mounting supply chain challenges. There’s no stopping the growth of logistics real estate take-up volumes, with a 3% increase predicted for 2022 to nearly 34 million square metres, on the back of a bumper 10% growth booked last year. Covid-19 has not impacted the logistics real estate take-up volumes across Europe. The fast growth of e-commerce and the buildup of more inventory to cope with supply chain disruptions favor the growth of warehousing.
Germany, France, and the United Kingdom are all expected to see take-up volumes in 2022 outperform the market average, although Spain will lead the growth with 13% more million square metres of logistics real estate to be added. The Netherlands and Belgium meanwhile will see their total take-up volumes wind down, just as the Czech Republic. Over half of the respondents told the researchers that they expect (strong) growth in the mega distribution centers segment – distribution centers with more than 40,000 million square metres of space. Germany, Poland, and the Netherlands are regarded as the most popular locations for such centres, for a variety of reasons including proximity to infrastructure hubs and the availability of real estate. In the city distribution centers segment (typically city and last mile hubs), the respondents are more pronounced in their forecast: 92% expect growth of this segment, due to the rise of e-commerce and food delivery concepts. In this segment, London and Paris are seen as the most promising cities.