Atlanta's industrial market, Southeast industrial real estate demand, and the forces shaping the next wave of development take center stage in this podcast. Douglas Biggs, Vice Chair of Colliers, Price Weaver, Principal of BroadPoint Partners, and Taylor & Mathis partners Walker Wellford and Hamilton Reynolds join host Andrew Taylor to reveal what's really happening on the ground across the Southeast's industrial submarkets right now.
The group walks through current vacancy and absorption trends compared to the pandemic era, the sustained demand drivers behind Atlanta's rise as a top-five U.S. industrial market, and how e-commerce growth continues to fuel warehouse expansion across the Southeast. They also dig into what tenants want from buildings today, including power capacity for automation, employee amenities, trailer parking, and office finish levels that would have been unheard of a decade ago.
They take a candid look at development economics: rising land costs, tightening entitlements, escalating construction and tenant improvement costs, and the resurgence of small-bay industrial as institutional investors warm back up to multi-tenant product.
Topics Discussed:
- Atlanta industrial vacancy, absorption, and deal volume trends
- Southeast infrastructure, ports, and inland port drayage savings
- E-commerce growth and its impact on warehouse demand
- Building design trends: power capacity, automation, and employee amenities
- Clear height standards and institutional investor expectations
- EV fleet charging and rising industrial power demand
- Big box versus small bay industrial development
- Land, entitlement, and construction cost challenges
- Data center competition for industrial land
Connect with Andrew Taylor, President, Taylor and Mathis:
https://www.taylormathis.com/
Connect:
- Douglas Biggs (Vice Chair, Principal, Colliers):
Douglas Biggs is vice chair and principal at Colliers, where he advises corporate real estate clients on office and industrial decisions across the United States. He leads a corporate services team in Atlanta and provides market insight across leasing, sales and landlord/tenant transactions. For this conversation on shaping the next cycle, Douglas brings a national occupier and advisory perspective on how companies are reading the market and making real estate decisions under changing conditions.
- Price Weaver (Co-Founder and Principal, BroadPoint Partners):
Price Weaver is co-founder and principal of BroadPoint Partners, bringing more than 25 years of experience and more than 25 million square feet of transaction expertise in industrial real estate. His background gives him a clear view into tenant representation, landlord strategy, site selection, and deal execution. In this episode, Price adds a transaction-focused perspective on how industrial users, owners, and investors are approaching the next cycle.
- Hamilton Reynolds (Partner and President, Industrial Division, Taylor and Mathis):
Hamilton Reynolds is Partner and President of the Industrial Division at Taylor & Mathis. Since rejoining the firm in 1996, he has overseen the development of more than 10 million square feet of industrial projects across the Southeast and helped grow Taylor & Mathis into one of the region’s leading industrial development firms.
- Walker Wellford (Partner and Senior Vice President, Leasing, Taylor & Mathis):
Walker Wellford is partner and senior vice president of leasing at Taylor & Mathis, where he oversees project leasing for T&M-owned properties and properties owned by third-party institutional owners. His work includes tenant prospecting, broker and tenant relationships, lease negotiations, market analysis and coordination with tenant construction teams. For this episode, Walker brings the day-to-day leasing perspective: what tenants are asking for, how demand is moving and how better leasing decisions affect long-term asset performance.
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