Something shifted in the first half of 2026. Companies that spent the past two years trimming warehouse footprints and renegotiating shorter leases reversed course in a big way. According to CBRE’s latest industrial leasing report, leases on U.S. properties with at least one million square feet more than doubled, jumping from 16 in H1 2025 to 38 in the first six months of this year. That’s not a gradual uptick. It’s a strategic pivot.

The top 100 industrial leases totaled 93.6 million square feet, a 26% year-over-year increase. Average deal sizes grew to 936,000 square feet, up from 744,000 in the same period last year. And tenants aren’t just taking more space. They’re locking in longer commitments, with average lease terms extending to 89 months, up five months from last year.

For anyone tracking where supply chain investment is actually flowing (not where LinkedIn posts say it’s flowing), this data tells a clear story.

The Caution Era Is Over

The industrial warehouse market spent most of 2023 and 2024 in a correction. After the pandemic-fueled land grab that saw vacancy rates drop below 3% in some markets, a wave of speculative construction flooded the market with new supply. Vacancy climbed to around 6.7% by early 2026. Rental growth flattened. Tenants gained leverage.

That cooling period created a buyer’s market, and it turns out smart operators used it to their advantage. New leases accounted for 66 of the top 100 deals in H1 2026, up from 60 last year. Companies aren’t just renewing existing footprints. They’re actively expanding into newer, more capable facilities.

“The largest leases signal continued stabilization across the industrial and logistics sector,” said Chris Zubel, executive managing director for Americas industrial and logistics at CBRE. “Occupiers are also making longer-term commitments, which reflects increased confidence in their business prospects and logistics planning.”

That confidence shows up in the numbers. Renewals dropped from 40 to 34, but the total renewed square footage actually increased from 26.7 million to 31.7 million square feet. In other words, companies renewing their leases are also upsizing.

Who’s Signing and Where

Three metro areas dominated H1 2026 leasing activity: California’s Inland Empire led with 14 leases covering 12.6 million square feet, followed by Dallas-Fort Worth with 11 leases (10.5 million square feet) and Chicago with 9 leases (9.4 million square feet). These aren’t surprises. All three sit at the center of major transportation corridors with deep labor pools and proximity to large consumer markets.

Third-party logistics providers still hold the biggest share, accounting for 30 of the top 100 leases. But their proportion actually dropped from 38 last year, which tells an interesting story. The demand base is broadening.

The most striking shift came from food and beverage companies. Their leased square footage more than tripled to 16.6 million square feet as they expanded regional distribution networks. This makes sense. The past few years exposed how fragile centralized food distribution can be. When a single facility goes down (whether from weather, a cyberattack, or equipment failure), entire regions lose access to products. Regional redundancy solves that problem, but it requires space. Lots of it.

General retailers and wholesalers, by contrast, pulled back. They accounted for just 17 of the top 100 leases, down from 28 in H1 2025. Many are optimizing existing networks rather than expanding, squeezing more throughput from current facilities through automation and better slotting strategies.

Amazon Keeps Building While Others Optimize

No discussion of warehouse real estate is complete without mentioning the biggest occupier of industrial space on the planet. Amazon announced two new facilities in late July: a 4 million-square-foot operations center in Holbrook, New York (a $1 billion investment creating roughly 1,000 jobs), and a 1.2 million-square-foot distribution center in Terrell, Texas ($98 million, with construction starting in August).

These join a growing pipeline. Amazon is also building a 250,000-square-foot sorting warehouse in Georgetown, Texas, and developing a 3 million-square-foot robotics fulfillment center in North Carolina. The company continues to close, convert, and renovate older facilities at the same time. A distribution facility in Port St. Lucie, Florida, is being temporarily shuttered and converted into a sortable fulfillment center.

Amazon’s strategy illustrates a broader trend: it’s not just about more square footage. It’s about the right kind of square footage. The Holbrook facility will be equipped with advanced robotics and technology. The North Carolina site is purpose-built for robotic fulfillment. Older buildings that can’t support modern automation get either upgraded or replaced.

This pattern applies across the market. CBRE’s 2026 outlook noted that mega big-box occupiers are prioritizing quick upgrades to newer facilities as first-generation large blocks (500,000+ square feet) become scarcer in top markets like Louisville, Columbus, Phoenix, and the Inland Empire.

Why Longer Leases Make Financial Sense Right Now

The shift toward longer lease terms isn’t just about confidence. It’s a financial play.

Warehouse rents surged during and after the pandemic. Between 2020 and 2023, asking rents for logistics space jumped 30-40% in many primary markets. While growth has moderated, rents haven’t dropped back to pre-pandemic levels. Locking in a 7+ year lease today protects companies from future rent inflation, especially in high-demand corridors where supply remains constrained.

There’s also the automation angle. Companies investing millions in automated storage and retrieval systems, goods-to-person robotics, or sortation equipment don’t want to move in five years. These systems take 12-18 months to install and commission. The ROI window typically runs 5-7 years. A short lease creates a misalignment between capital investment and occupancy timeline. Longer leases eliminate that risk.

For 3PLs specifically, longer commitments also help win and retain customers. A shipper evaluating 3PL partners wants assurance that the provider has stable access to well-located capacity. “We might not have this building next year” is a terrible thing to tell a prospective client.

What This Means for Supply Chain Leaders

If you’re running supply chain operations, the CBRE data carries a few practical implications.

The window for tenant-favorable deals is narrowing. Overall U.S. industrial leasing rose 14% year-over-year in Q1 2026, and CBRE projects total leasing activity to approach 1 billion square feet for the full year (a 5% increase). As demand absorbs available supply, landlords will regain pricing power. Companies that need to expand or relocate should be moving now, not waiting for conditions to improve further.

Modern building specs matter more than ever. Clear heights of 36+ feet, heavy floor loads, ample power for automation, and EV-ready truck courts are becoming table stakes for Class A distribution space. Older facilities with 28-foot clear heights and limited power won’t support the operational density that modern supply chains demand.

Regional distribution is winning over centralization. The food and beverage sector’s tripling of leased space reflects a broader shift. Companies across industries are building out regional fulfillment networks to reduce last-mile delivery times, manage disruption risk, and comply with increasingly tight delivery windows set by retailers and consumers.

Automation readiness drives location decisions. It’s no longer enough for a building to be in the right zip code. Companies are evaluating sites based on power availability, floor specifications, and the ability to support robotic systems from day one. This is filtering demand toward newer construction and away from aging industrial parks.

Conclusion

The mega-warehouse leasing surge of H1 2026 isn’t a speculative bubble. It’s the supply chain industry making deliberate, long-term bets on capacity, technology readiness, and network design. After two years of caution, occupiers are committing capital and signing longer leases because the math favors it: lock in modern space now, install automation, and build the regional networks that today’s fulfillment demands require.

The companies that secured their next-generation warehouse footprints in this window will have a structural advantage over competitors still operating out of older facilities with shorter leases and less flexibility. In supply chain, where you are and what your building can do have always mattered. In 2026, those factors matter more than they have in years.

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