Market Absorption Report
⚠️ SUPERSEDED BY DAL RE-RUN. This first-run report has been re-run through the Data Authority Layer (Strict Analyst Mode). See dal-strict-analyst-verdict.md for the governing result. Under the DAL, the figures below are proprietary-derived third-party publications (brokerage vacancy datasets tier), retained for reference only — they are not certified as computable "true" values.
I-4 Corridor Industrial Absorption — Florida Logistics Submarkets
Period: Q1 2026 (latest published quarter as of retrieval) with trailing-12-month context Compiled: June 24, 2026 Geography: The I-4 logistics corridor running Tampa Bay → Lakeland/Polk County → Orlando Data basis: Authoritative brokerage research only (Cushman & Wakefield MarketBeat, Newmark, CBRE, JLL, Savills, Avison Young, Lee & Associates, Matthews). See data/source-log.csv for the URL + retrieval date behind every figure.
0. Read this first — what this report is and is not
You asked for the "true" absorption rate for every major logistics submarket over the last 12 months, using authoritative data only. Three honest constraints shape what follows:
- **These are *published* figures, not figures I independently calculated.** True net absorption is the change in *occupied* SF, derived from building-by-building occupancy tracking that lives in proprietary platforms (CoStar, CBRE-EA). I do not have a live feed into those, and I will not fabricate or "estimate" occupancy. Every number below is a metric a named research house published and is cited to its source.
- The reporting cadence is quarterly, and the freshest complete data is Q1 2026. Brokers report YTD (which, in Q1, equals the quarter) plus year-over-year change. A clean rolling trailing-12-month (Apr 2025–Mar 2026) figure is not uniformly published; where a firm gives a 12-month change I include it, otherwise I give Q1 2026 plus YoY direction. Treat the "last 12 months" ask as best-served by the YoY columns here, not a single rolled-up number.
- The firms disagree — materially — and that disagreement is itself a finding. They use different inventory universes, submarket boundaries, and W/D-vs-all-classes definitions. The starkest example: **Cushman & Wakefield reports Polk County at +244,531 SF net absorption / 5.8% vacancy on a 75.1M SF base, while Newmark reports the *same* county at −147,660 SF / 9.4% on a 62.3M SF base.** Both are "authoritative." Neither is "the truth" — they are measuring different rulers. I surface the spread rather than papering over it.
Bottom line: Use this as a properly-sourced triangulation. For a single defensible "true" number per building or an audited submarket figure, the next step is a CoStar/brokerage data pull, which I flag in §6.
1. Corridor at a glance (Q1 2026)
| Market segment | Total inventory | Vacancy | Q1 2026 net absorption | Q1 deliveries | Under construction | Primary source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tampa Bay (incl. Polk under Newmark def.) | 257.7M SF | 8.7% | +419,690 SF | 884,298 SF | 4.79M SF | Newmark |
| Lakeland / Polk County (standalone) | 75.1M SF | 5.8% | +244,531 SF | ~0 (Lakeland) | 893,191 SF | C&W |
| Orlando | 128.5M SF | 8.1% | +187,174 SF | 696,094 SF | 3.11M SF | C&W |
The I-4 W/D corridor totals >230M SF and is anchored by Publix, Amazon and FedEx (C&W "Corridor of Commerce"). Note Tampa Bay's total above *includes* Polk in Newmark's geography, so do not add row 1 + row 2 (double counting). The cross-firm market-level spread is shown in §5.
2. Lakeland / Polk County — the central I-4 logistics hub (Cushman & Wakefield, Q1 2026)
This is the corridor's purpose-built distribution core (Lakeland Central Park, the Ruthvens/Pace, BBX, Parkway). C&W breaks it cleanly into submarkets:
| Submarket | Inventory (SF) | Vacant (SF) | Vacancy | Net absorption (SF) | New deliveries (SF) | Under construction (SF) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northeast Lakeland | 13,593,268 | 1,139,818 | 8.4% | +168,942 | 0 | 201,420 |
| Northwest Lakeland | 9,465,214 | 353,867 | 3.7% | 0 | 88,800 | 30,000 |
| Southeast Lakeland | 2,684,470 | 153,148 | 5.7% | 0 | 17,125 | 0 |
| Southwest Lakeland | 15,311,276 | 1,465,508 | 9.6% | +10,740 | 338,464 | 394,315 |
| Lakeland subtotal | 41,054,228 | 3,112,341 | 7.6% | +179,682 | 444,389 | 625,735 |
| Davenport | 6,854,235 | 108,832 | 1.6% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| East Polk | 19,623,891 | 659,350 | 3.4% | +64,849 | 82,855 | 267,456 |
| South Polk | 7,580,132 | 505,424 | 6.7% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| East Polk subtotal | 34,058,258 | 1,273,606 | 3.7% | +64,849 | 82,855 | 267,456 |
| POLK COUNTY TOTAL | 75,112,486 | 4,385,947 | 5.8% | +244,531 | — | 893,191 |
Vacancy change: Trending down. Polk W/D vacancy was 7.8% in Q4 2025 (down 250 bps YoY per TBIA/C&W); C&W and CBRE both describe Q1 2026 as a continued tightening phase. New supply is "largely pre-committed," sublease availability "negligible" (CBRE).
New deliveries / pipeline note: C&W's narrative states Lakeland saw essentially no new completions in Q1 2026 (a deliberate cooldown), even though the table carries small YTD-completion entries by submarket — I flag this as a source-internal ambiguity (see §6). The 893,191 SF pipeline is the firm number and reconciles exactly (Lakeland 625,735 + East Polk 267,456).
Under-construction projects (C&W): Lakeland Central Park 3 (261,161 SF, SW Lakeland, Parkway Properties); Logistics Center at Lakeland (201,420 SF, NE Lakeland, BBX Logistics); The Ruthvens at Pace Innovation Center Bldg 500 (163,372 SF) + Bldg 300 (104,084 SF) (East Polk, Intersect Development).
3. Orlando — east end of the corridor (Cushman & Wakefield, Q1 2026)
| Submarket | On I-4 | Inventory (SF) | Vacant (SF) | Vacancy | Net absorption (SF) | Deliveries (SF) | Under constr. (SF) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airport/Lake Nona | yes (SE) | 25,408,715 | 2,829,238 | 11.1% | −205,615 | 283,160 | 2,269,410 |
| Silver Star/Apopka | yes (NW) | 22,612,470 | 2,868,900 | 12.7% | +239,923 | 118,173 | 0 |
| Orlando Central Park | yes (S/Beachline) | 22,168,146 | 1,538,823 | 6.9% | +57,584 | 103,368 | 0 |
| Regency/Turnpike/Beachline | yes | 18,305,873 | 612,023 | 3.3% | −3,592 | 46,223 | 0 |
| Lake Mary/Sanford | yes (NE) | 9,142,492 | 456,800 | 5.0% | +4,375 | 56,285 | 53,440 |
| Osceola/Kissimmee | yes (SW→Polk) | 6,746,182 | 482,933 | 7.2% | +1,560 | 1,350 | 219,000 |
| West Orange/Winter Garden | yes (SW) | 4,188,479 | 535,775 | 12.8% | +87,690 | 2,838 | 0 |
| East Orange/University/Forsyth | no | 4,619,418 | 386,103 | 8.4% | +54,292 | 11,272 | 0 |
| Altamonte Springs/Longwood | partial | 4,210,408 | 126,600 | 3.0% | +19,123 | 35,473 | 0 |
| CBD/Winter Park/Maitland | partial | 2,841,743 | 134,506 | 4.7% | −49,939 | 4,061 | 565,000 |
| Michigan/South Orange | partial | 2,277,337 | 75,583 | 3.3% | −2,702 | 0 | 0 |
| Winter Springs/Oviedo | no | 780,607 | 20,073 | 2.6% | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| ORLANDO TOTAL | — | 128,452,199 | 10,358,401 | 8.1% | +187,174 | 696,094 | 3,106,850 |
Vacancy change: C&W/Avison Young: 8.1%, +20 bps QoQ — demand keeping pace with supply. (CBRE puts it higher at 10.1%, +110 bps YoY; Lee at 9.48%, +87 bps QoQ — see §5.) The pipeline is heavily concentrated in Airport/Lake Nona (2.27M of 3.11M SF UC).
4. Tampa Bay — west end of the corridor (Newmark, Q1 2026)
I-4-relevant Tampa submarkets bolded; full all-classes statistics:
| Submarket | On I-4 | Inventory (SF) | Vacancy | Net absorption (SF) | Under construction (SF) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| E Hillsborough/Plant City | yes | 19,599,598 | 13.3% | +38,386 | 0 |
| SE Hillsborough | yes | 4,457,530 | 9.4% | +302,609 | 404,790 |
| East Side Tampa | yes (I-4/I-75) | 57,615,888 | 5.4% | +40,424 | 828,940 |
| Polk County *(Newmark's def.)* | yes | 62,268,254 | 9.4% | −147,660 | 1,465,172 |
| Pasco County | no | 9,981,665 | 10.2% | +61,202 | 812,703 |
| Bradenton/Manatee | no | 22,299,278 | 11.1% | +106,979 | 917,937 |
| North Pinellas | no | 8,254,292 | 10.9% | +93,631 | 0 |
| South Pinellas | no | 40,378,232 | 7.7% | −7,335 | 259,881 |
| Sarasota | no | 13,784,448 | 11.9% | −23,055 | 98,070 |
| NW Hillsborough | partial | 1,783,620 | 17.6% | +875 | 0 |
| NE Hillsborough/University | no | 1,166,671 | 1.8% | −17,452 | 0 |
| S Tampa Ind | no | 1,434,034 | 4.2% | +2,000 | 0 |
| TAMPA MARKET TOTAL | — | 257,672,515 | 8.7% | +419,690 | 4,787,493 |
Vacancy change: +93 bps YoY to 8.7%, but −14 bps QoQ (Newmark). New supply has outpaced demand by ~2x since 2023, pushing vacancy to a recent high. Polk leads the pipeline at 1.5M SF (30.6% of Tampa's 4.8M SF) and led deliveries since 2023 at 7.4M SF.
⚠️ Newmark vs C&W on Polk: Newmark folds Polk into Tampa at 62.3M SF / 9.4% / −147,660 SF; C&W treats Polk standalone at 75.1M SF / 5.8% / +244,531 SF. Opposite absorption sign. This is a definitional/universe difference, not an error in either — see §5–6.
5. Move-ins vs move-outs (the absorption drivers)
Net absorption is move-ins minus move-outs (in SF). Free reports publish the *net* plus *notable named* deals, not a full tenant-by-tenant gross ledger (that needs CoStar — §6). What's documented:
Move-ins (positive) — signed/occupied Q1 2026:
| Tenant | Building / Submarket | Type | SF | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primo Brands | E Hillsborough/Plant City (Tampa) | Move-in | 290,966 | Newmark |
| JW Fulfillment | Lakeside Logistics Bldg 1, E Hillsborough/Plant City | New lease | 252,580 | Newmark |
| PECO Pallet | Lakeland Logistics Center, Polk | New (relocation within Lakeland) | 211,284 | Newmark |
| Piedmont National | Airport Industrial Pk Bldg 5, Westshore/Airport | Renewal | 108,401 | Newmark |
| Aries EV | Park 4 Logistics Ctr, E Hillsborough/Plant City | New lease | 96,540 | Newmark |
| Undisclosed | The Ruthvens at Pace Bldg 500, Polk | New lease | 77,395 | Newmark |
Move-outs (negative) — documented give-backs:
- South Orlando: two large give-backs drove Lee & Associates' market-wide net absorption to −49,274 SF; excluding them the market would have been +270,000 SF. (Lee & Associates)
- Airport/Lake Nona (Orlando): −205,615 SF net, the corridor's largest single-submarket negative print (C&W).
- Polk County (Newmark basis): −147,660 SF, attributed to net move-outs in legacy product even as new pre-leased space fills.
- Tampa, sub-100k SF buildings: the only size segment with a QoQ vacancy *increase*, "driven by net move-outs" — smaller-bay softening (Newmark).
Pattern: Demand is concentrated in new, large-format Class A space (250k+ SF drove 60.8% of Tampa absorption since 2019); move-outs cluster in older/smaller-bay product. Big single tenants (Primo Brands; the South Orlando give-backs) swing quarterly submarket numbers.
6. Cross-firm reconciliation & honest limitations
Market-level spread (same quarter, different rulers):
| Market | Vacancy | Q1 net absorption | Under construction | Deliveries |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tampa — Newmark | 8.7% | +419,690 | 4.79M | 884,298 |
| Tampa — CBRE | 7.5% | n/a (positive, tempered) | declining | — |
| Tampa — Savills | 9.1% (+90 bps YoY) | −0.2M SF YTD | 5.2M | 1.0M YTD |
| Tampa — Matthews | 7.3% | +379k | 2.6M | 322k |
| Orlando — C&W / Avison Young | 8.1% | +187,174 / +262,133 | 3.11M | 696,094 |
| Orlando — CBRE | 10.1% (+110 bps YoY) | +357,000 | 2.1M | 673,000 |
| Orlando — Lee & Associates | 9.48% (+87 bps QoQ) | −49,274 (ex-give-backs +270k) | strong | ~1.4M |
| Polk — C&W | 5.8% | +244,531 | 893,191 | ~0 (Lakeland) |
| Polk — Newmark | 9.4% | −147,660 | 1,465,172 | — |
Why they differ: different inventory universes (Savills counts 279.6M SF in Tampa Bay vs Newmark 257.7M), different submarket maps, W/D-only vs all-classes, and whether Polk is its own market or a Tampa submarket. Vacancy alone ranges 7.3%–9.1% for the same Tampa quarter.
Specific limitations of this deliverable:
- Quarterly, not a clean rolling 12-month roll-up. Q1 2026 + YoY direction is the honest answer to "last 12 months" from free data.
- Submarket-level deliveries carry a source-internal ambiguity in the C&W tables (a completions column that conflicts with C&W's own "no Q1 Lakeland completions" narrative). Inventory, vacancy, net absorption and under-construction per submarket reconcile to published totals and are high-confidence; treat *per-submarket delivery* cells as indicative.
- No full tenant move-in/move-out ledger is available in free reports — only net figures plus named notable deals (§5).
- These are published research outputs, not an independent audit. I did not (and cannot, without source-platform access) recompute occupancy building-by-building.
To get an audited, single-source "true" number: pull the I-4 submarkets directly from CoStar or commission one brokerage (e.g., C&W, who covers the whole corridor consistently) for a single-methodology trailing-12-month dataset. That removes the cross-firm spread shown above. I can structure that request or ingest such a pull if you have access.
Sources
All figures cited in data/source-log.csv with publisher, report title, period, URL, and retrieval date (2026-06-24). Submarket numbers in machine-readable form: data/submarket-metrics.csv.