Build-to-Suit Industrial Real Estate: Mastering Tenant Capital Strategy with Joe Neckles

Recorded live from IAMC in Little Rock, Industrial Advisors host Joe Neckles of Fortress Investment Group to discuss Fortress's single-tenant triple-net lease strategy and his focus on fully capitalizing build-to-suit projects with developers and users. Neckles explains Fortress invests via existing net-lease acquisitions, sale-leasebacks, and build-to-suits, emphasizing direct engagement with developers, tenant reps, and end users. The conversation highlights why tenants choose build-to-suit over spec space or ownership: specialized needs (manufacturing, cold storage, data centers), limited market availability, and the ability to invest capital into their core business rather than real estate. Typical build-to-suit leases target 15+ years, ideally 20+ with extension options, and can reduce tenant risk through guaranteed maximum price contracts and delivery timelines; Fortress supports power needs by funding solutions once sites are vetted. They note improving build-to-suit activity after uncertainty in 2024–2025 and tighter construction lending in 2023, with some tenants taking advantage of a softer industrial market to lock long-term rates.

0:00 Intro and Joe Neckles Background

2:10 Building Strategic Industry Partnerships

3:45 Why Choose Build to Suit Over Spec

5:15 Power Capacity and Infrastructure Challenges

6:35 Lease vs Ownership Strategy

7:55 Mitigating Risk and Project Timelines

9:15 Industrial Market Trends and Outlook

NFI's 3PL Growth, Real Estate Strategy, and Tech Adoption with Michael Landsburg (IAMC Little Rock)

Live from the IAMC conference in Little Rock, the Industrial Advisors podcast interviews Michael Landsburg of NFI about the company's scale and strategy in the 3PL world. Landsburg explains NFI is a 94-year-old, privately held, family-owned supply chain company operating primarily in the US and Canada, with about 80 million square feet in its portfolio (about 17 million owned), roughly 18,000 employees, 5,000 trucks, and 14,000 trailers, serving shipments from Asian ports to home delivery. He discusses how NFI decides between customer-held leases, NFI-held leases, and owning facilities for control, speed, flexibility, and family investment diversification. This includes a shift after the global financial crisis toward leasing more space to third parties. He touches on submarket-by-submarket leasing conditions, NFI's strong performance versus the industry since 2022, a reduced risk posture in matching leases to contracts, ongoing data centralization to enable AI, warehouse automation with fully autonomous robots, and uncertainty over whether Asian-based 3PL growth represents net-new demand or market-share shift.

0:00 Intro and NFI overview

2:10 The history of the 94-year-old family business

4:15 Strategy behind owning vs leasing assets

6:30 Diversifying the portfolio after 2008

8:45 Current industrial market trends and softness

11:00 Leveraging data and AI in logistics

13:15 Autonomous robots in the warehouse

14:50 The impact of Asian 3PL growth

16:00 Closing thoughts and wrap up

2026 Industrial Outlook: Market Rebalancing, Big Box Demand & Nearshoring

Live at the IAMC conference in Little Rock, hosts interview Stephanie Rodriguez, who leads Colliers' industrial platform, about her people-focused approach to client and team relationships and her extensive travel (over 300,000 American Airlines miles last year). She discusses Colliers' positioning and performance, noting an uptick after Q1 in industrial deal and revenue counts and a stronger start to 2026, plus continued talent recruitment. Rodriguez highlights regional market dynamics: low-vacancy, conservative development and steady rent growth in the central region; strong Southeast demand driven by population growth and onshoring/nearshoring; and West Coast stabilization tied to ports. Growth drivers include steady e-commerce, dominant 3PL leasing activity, reshored advanced manufacturing (chips, pharmaceuticals), and capital-intensive data centers. Institutional owners remain focused on build-to-suit, with selective return to speculative development in low-vacancy markets and renewed big-box demand, including increased Amazon activity.

0:00 Intro and Guest Introduction

2:15 Colliers Platform and Regional Trends

5:10 Growth Sectors: 3PLs and Manufacturing

7:00 Institutional Perspectives and Spec Development

8:20 Big Box Trends and Upcoming Conferences