Industrial Insights is a podcast that highlights the market dynamics, high level strategies, and in the trenches tactics for tenants and owners of industrial real estate. Each episode is designed to take hard fought wisdom from practitioners and break it down into insights that can drive better commercial real estate decision making. The host, Justin Smith, shares his experiences from 16 years in the business and brings in industry experts to discuss critical aspects of successful industrial projects.
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Inside the NorCal Industrial Growth Engine | Craig Hagglund
Episode 167
Friday, October 16, 2026 • Duration 43:03
Craig Hagglund, SIOR, has worked the I-880 corridor since 1989. He helped open Lee & Associates' first Northern California office in Pleasanton in 1993, then opened the Oakland office, which just turned 20. Today he co-runs it as Managing Principal.
We talk about starting Lee up north after getting locked out of the old office, how Craig and Chris Schofield split the work running Oakland, and how he wins business without the big pitch. Craig explains why new buildings with 4,000 amps of power get $2.00/SF/month NNN while older Hayward buildings trade near $1.10/SF/month NNN, why Fremont may be the hottest market in the country right now, what renewing tenants should expect, how he invests after 37 years, and what happens when clients run lease drafts through ChatGPT.
Guest: Craig Hagglund, SIOR, Managing Principal, Lee & Associates Oakland Host: Justin Smith, SIOR, Lee & Associates Irvine
Recorded October 16, 2026. Market views are the speakers' observations at the time of recording.
Growing a Top Performing Industrial Brokerage Team in New Jersey | Troy Wisse
Episode 166
Friday, October 16, 2026 • Duration 48:15
Troy Wisse, Partner at Lee & Associates - WBE, joins Justin Smith to discuss growing an industrial brokerage team in Northern New Jersey, developing the next generation of brokers, and serving clients through the Lee platform. His path from intern to partner provides the foundation for a conversation about leadership, learning, and team growth.
They discuss earning a mentor, mentoring the next broker, balancing landlord and tenant representation, Class A and Class B leasing, client service across the Lee network, practical AI, and prospecting.
Guest: Troy Wisse, Partner, Lee & Associates - WBE Host: Justin Smith, SIOR, Lee & Associates Irvine
Recorded October 15, 2026. Market views are the speakers' observations at recording.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and the cross-coast relationship 01:55 Northern New Jersey roots 03:23 The cold call that led to Lee 07:01 Becoming a partner 08:42 Earning a mentor 11:40 What new brokers should ask 12:56 Mentoring Eddie 15:46 A new marketing lane 17:03 Building confidence in public 19:52 A landlord-led practice 21:19 Class A demand and the construction pipeline 24:05 Class B leasing and concessions 26:18 The lasting value of location 28:40 Southern California comparison 33:01 Growing through tenant representation 33:44 Owning the client problem 35:33 AI in the brokerage back office 42:18 Call screening and accessibility
Flow, Fragility & The New Industrial Real Estate w/ Rob Handfield | Industrial Insights #165
Season 1 · Episode 165
Monday, October 12, 2026 • Duration 40:25
Dr. Rob Handfield, Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University and Executive Director of the Supply Chain Resource Cooperative (SCRC), joins Justin Smith, SIOR, to explore how global supply network dynamics govern real-world warehouse, logistics, and manufacturing facility decisions.
When an occupier says, "We need another warehouse," how do we identify the real operational constraint before signing a costly, long-term lease? From the physics of inventory flow to multi-tier supplier blind spots, Dr. Handfield delivers a masterclass on diagnosing supply chain fragility before making multi-million dollar real estate commitments.
Key Topics & Executive Insights:
The Physics of Flow: Why supply networks operate like river systems, and why excessive buffer inventory creates operational silt rather than safety.
Multi-Tier Blind Spots: Lessons from the Strategic National Stockpile and why 85% of disruption risk originates at Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers.
The 40nm DRAM Crunch: How tech hyperscalers and AI data centers are locking up global memory capacity through 2027, crowding out legacy automotive and medical device allocations.
The Onshoring Catch-22: Why domestic generic drug production costs 2.5x to 4x more and requires multi-year guaranteed federal off-take contracts to underwrite facility debt.
The North Carolina Industrial Hub: Inside Holly Springs' $6.5B biomanufacturing boom (Fujifilm Diosynth, Amgen) and the Berry Amendment (10 U.S.C. 4862) driving textile mill revitalization in western NC.
Nearshoring vs. Tariffs: Comparing Monterrey's 2-4 day transit time and $4.80/hr labor against Pacific ocean freight and border tariff friction.
When Procurement Runs Real Estate: Managing industrial leases as strategic corporate contracts, with tenant improvement fit-out (racking, AMRs, conveyor robotics) adding 30% to 50% on top of base rent.
Relational Governance: Why rigid penalty clauses fail in 68% of crises, while collaborative governance resolves blockages 4x faster with 92% supplier retention.
Chapters: Featured Research, Books & Statutes:
Power, Land and Timing with Bill Shopoff | Industrial Insights #164
Episode 164
Thursday, October 8, 2026 • Duration 41:51
Justin Smith sits down with Bill Shopoff, President and CEO of Shopoff Realty Investments, to discuss land entitlement, master-planned development, and industrial market cycles across Southern California and the Inland Empire.
Topics covered include:
How the Sierra Club and CVAN CEQA lawsuit delayed the I-10 Logistics Center into the peak 2021 market
Selling the 1.83M SF I-10 facility for $329 million to Brookfield
Mesa Verde in Calimesa: keeping 3,650 homes under SB 330 while unlocking 4.2M SF of big-box industrial
Why power availability and substation capacity have become an asset class in site selection
Repurposing industrial sites to residential, including 281 homes at the former Amway facility in Buena Park
Entitling industrial on Agua Caliente tribal land at the I-10 and Highway 111
Using AI for rapid site diligence and how AI will reshape the entry-level real estate analyst role
Recorded October 7, 2026. Figures, project details, and market statements are Bill's account in the interview.
The Long View: Jack Cline on L.A. Industrial | Industrial Insights #163
Episode 163
Sunday, October 4, 2026 • Duration 44:49
I sat down with Jack Cline, President of Lee & Associates Downtown Los Angeles, to talk about the buildings he holds, the market he knows and the brokerage business he is still building.
We cover Vernon and Commerce, power for data centers, a changing choice of buildings for sale, Bill Lee's broker-owned model, using Claude to work through office economics, building young brokers and the books Jack gives away. I also share what ownership and a loan rate reset taught me about the questions I ask on somebody else's deal.
Recorded Oct. 2, 2026. Jack's investment figures, office economics and market observations are his account in this conversation. His comments about rates, cold-storage demand and development reflect his views as of the recording.
In this episode
Why Jack says the deals he regrets are the buildings he sold
How partnership and cash flow shape his approach to ownership
Vernon and Commerce, sale supply and slower price adjustment
Why he sees power as central to data-center site decisions
Bill Lee's broker-owned office model and recruiting economics
Four runners, a learning curriculum and the next generation
A prescription pad for books and the danger of getting comfortable
Chapters
00:00:00 Youth Champions and mindset
00:03:27 LA industrial: Downtown, Vernon and Commerce
00:04:45 Data centers and power in Vernon
00:07:25 Vernon housing and local government
00:09:50 Cold storage in Vernon
00:13:15 A sales overhang and slower price correction
00:14:40 Where interest rates settle
00:15:39 LA City, Prologis and Measure ULA
00:17:55 Property rights
00:19:28 Opening Lee's Downtown LA office
00:22:27 Building young brokers
00:23:31 The next generation at Lee
00:26:03 Growing the pie and investing with clients
00:27:26 Bill Lee and the broker-owned model
00:29:51 Recruiting with AI and the office flywheel
00:31:36 Presidents meetings
00:32:52 Strategic Coach, EOS and personal growth
Can You Get Power? Rob Gramlich on the Grid & Industrial Site Selection
Episode 162
Thursday, October 1, 2026 • Duration 28:35
What happens when a manufacturer or data center finds a site but cannot get connected to the grid for five or six years? Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies, joins Justin Smith to explain why electric demand caught utilities off guard, what is slowing new connections, and how power is becoming part of industrial site selection.
We discuss rising utility bills, the culture clash between fast-moving tech firms and reliability-focused utilities, the race for AI power, regional differences from Northern Virginia to Texas and Ohio, and practical ways to get more out of the grid we already have. Rob also explains the three Ps of transmission (planning, permitting and paying) and why a willingness to pay for a project does not make the cost-sharing decision simple.
Key Takeaways
Utilities are telling some large new customers they cannot connect them for five or six years. Grid capacity, not land, now sets many start dates.
The five-year U.S. load growth forecast rose from 2.6% to 4.7% in a single year (Grid Strategies, December 2023).
Rising bills have many causes: new demand, expensive equipment, rebuilding after wildfires and storms, and replacing aging equipment.
Big loads chase grid capacity, then move on once it is used up.
Wind-cooled lines, smarter charging and batteries can all get more out of the existing grid.
For power-intensive site searches, bring grid expertise onto the site selection team early.
Recorded September 30, 2026. Later that day, the Senate released the bipartisan permitting bill Rob mentions, the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026. Rob had not reviewed the bill text on air.
Guest: Rob Gramlich, President, Grid Strategies Host: Justin Smith, SIOR, Lee & Associates Irvine
Growing in Charlotte with Travis Wood of Lee & Associates
Episode 161
Saturday, September 26, 2026 • Duration 50:24
Travis Wood spent six years at Prologis, working his way up from property management to leasing on a small team covering 15 to 16 million square feet in the Baltimore and DC market. Then he and his wife made the leap: a new city, a brand new Lee & Associates office in Charlotte, and straight commission. Two and a half years later, Lee Charlotte has grown to 17 people and Travis is part of the four-person JGPT team.
We get into what the owner side teaches you about brokers, how the JGPT team formed (the name is a play on AI, but it's all human intelligence), and the day-to-day mechanics of building a pipeline: four hours a day of prospecting, why he skips the voicemail on the first call, the handwritten note that got a callback, picking a CRM as a team, and why every call should bring a piece of information.
We finish with the Charlotte industrial market: growth, new supply, the flight to quality, tight flex and small bay product, owner-user pricing, and how to price industrial outdoor storage.
Key Takeaways
Every successful career has an inflection point where you take a risk. Travis left a salaried Prologis seat for commission in a city where he knew almost no one.
Seeing every brokerage shop from the owner side teaches you what works. Borrow the best approach from each.
Prospecting is not optional. The JGPT team blocks four hours a day for calls, texts and emails, because not every deal in the pipeline closes.
Casual and direct beats scripted. And when an owner won't take your call, a teammate with a different style might get through.
Skip the voicemail on the first call. Send a short, vague text instead. In the AI age, a real text proves you're a real person.
Never make a truly cold call. Bring a piece of information and it becomes a lukewarm call.
Luck is a numbers game. Put yourself in position more often and more deals hit.
Charlotte is growing fast: roughly 135 new residents a day, heavy new supply, positive absorption, and a flight to quality as new 32-foot buildings compete with older 24-foot product.
Small bay and flex are tight. Owner-user sales run around $200 a foot, and flex rents have reached about $17 for 5,000 to 10,000 square feet.
Operations Consulting from Shop Floor to Boardroom with Gabriel Rodrigues of FALCONI
Episode 160
Wednesday, May 20, 2026 • Duration 43:55
Gabriel Rodrigues is a Partner at FALCONI, the largest management consulting firm in Brazil, now operating across North America. He moved from Brazil to Chicago in 2018 to build their U.S. practice from scratch and was recently named one of the Top 25 Supply Chain Consultants in the country. In this conversation, Gabriel breaks down what he sees when he walks into a manufacturing plant or warehouse, why most companies are not ready for the technology they are buying, and what industrial real estate operators need to understand about how their buildings affect tenant operations.
Key Takeaways
Fix the process before you buy the tech. If your operations are chaotic, technology will only make that chaos more expensive.
Automation is now a labor strategy, not a cost strategy. Companies are lowering ROI thresholds because the alternative is not having workers at all.
Space optimization comes before network changes. Most companies have far more capacity in their existing facilities than they realize.
The building is part of the talent strategy. Parking, security, lighting, and amenities directly affect whether workers show up. Landlords are sitting on a platform opportunity.
Operational services like layout analysis, energy optimization, and data integration can be offered to tenants at scale.
The real AI use cases in operations right now: predictive maintenance, machine vision, automated materials handling, and process control.
Brazilian operational discipline, forged in a harder environment, is now being applied to American companies that never had to be that rigorous.
Chapters
02:15 - Growing up in Itajuba, Brazil and the path to engineering
06:30 - What is FALCONI and how it started
09:45 - Vicente Falconi, Toyota, and bringing TQC to Brazil
12:07 - "Changing the wheel while the car is running"
15:20 - How FALCONI embeds inside companies vs. traditional consulting
18:40 - The move to the United States and building the practice from zero
Orange County Industrial Real Estate Market Update Q1 2026 with Jay Tanjuan of Scannell Properties & Sean Ward of CBRE
Episode 159
Wednesday, May 13, 2026 • Duration 48:43
Three Southern California industrial veterans — Jay Tanjuan of Scannell Properties, Sean Ward of CBRE, and host Justin Smith of Lee & Associates — sit down to break down where the Orange County industrial market actually sits in Q1 2026. Each has spent more than two decades in SoCal industrial, riding every cycle from the early 2000s through the COVID boom and the current reset.
The conversation lands on a few specific takeaways. Tenants didn't leave OC — they renegotiated. Advanced manufacturing (defense, aerospace, AI, energy, robotics) is rapidly becoming the dominant demand story. Three site attributes now drive every meaningful lease: proximity to labor, power, and parking. Land values are down 60 to 70 percent from the 2022 peak, which means the underwriting math actually works for the first time in two years. And only 2.7% of OC's existing industrial inventory is 36' clear or better — making the right kind of building genuinely scarce.
Plus: the port-volumes-vs-vacancy disconnect, what landlords now demand to underwrite startup credit, where institutional capital is finally returning, Scannell's 10,000-amp project in Garden Grove, and bold predictions for humanoid robots in warehouses by 2027 — or sooner.
Key Takeaways
Advanced manufacturing is now the dominant OC industrial demand story. Defense, aerospace, AI, energy, and robotics tenants are signing the biggest leases in the market. Velar Atomics — a small modular nuclear reactor company with fewer than 50 employees — just leased 500,000 SF.
The Three Ps drive every advanced manufacturing site decision: Labor, Power, Parking. These tenants are paying north of $2 NNN to be in the right pocket of OC or LA — and they won't compromise on any of the three.
Only 2.7% of Orange County industrial inventory is 36' clear or higher. Modern-spec product is genuinely scarce, and the buildings that fit what these tenants need are getting harder to find.
Land values are down 60-70% from the 2022 peak. The underwriting math actually works for the first time in two years. New development sites are coming to market weekly as other groups exit projects.
Bringing Data Mastery to Shipping with Hannah Testani of Intelligent Audit
Episode 158
Monday, May 11, 2026 • Duration 40:23
Justin Smith interviews Hannah Testani of Intelligent Audit to explore how data-driven strategies and AI are transforming transportation spend management, supply chain resilience, and logistics optimization amidst global disruptions. Hannah and Justin dig into why most companies are operating as firefighters instead of engineers, what they're getting wrong without knowing it, where the parcel carrier market is headed, and why AI is already doing for supply chain what credit card fraud detection did for banking. Key Topics
Data-driven transportation optimization
Impact of global disruptions on logistics
AI and automation in supply chain management
Chapters
02:42 - Understanding the Role of Intelligent Audit
05:22 - Common Challenges in Supply Chain Management
08:11 - The Impact of Freight Markets on Shipping
10:57 - Navigating Carrier Relationships and Costs
13:27 - Innovative Solutions for Supply Chain Efficiency
16:15 - The Complexity of Invoicing and Data Management
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The 3PL Boom: Why 3PL logistics operators account for 30% to 50% of annual warehouse leasing in major logistics hubs.
AI in Sourcing Decisions: How NC State Jenkins MBA students use AI to accelerate market discovery by 70% while keeping 100% human accountability for final awards.
00:00 - Welcome & NC State Supply Chain Resource Cooperative
02:20 - Training the Next Generation of Supply Chain Talent
02:58 - The North Carolina Boom: Holly Springs Biopharma Hub
04:27 - Greensboro Logistics & Western NC Defense Textiles
05:50 - The Berry Amendment & Domestic Sourcing Mandates
06:06 - Inside the Pandemic Supply Chain: The Story Behind "Flow"
Guest: Dr. Rob Handfield, Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management, NC State University Host: Justin Smith, SIOR, Senior Vice President & Principal, Lee & Associates Irvine
The five-year renewal wave is hitting now. Tenants who signed in 2020-2022 are deciding to grow, contract, or stay flat — and that decision will shape OC absorption over the next 18 months.
Power is the new constraint. Scannell's Garden Grove project delivers with 10,000 amps of power — increasingly the only spec advanced manufacturing tenants will sign for.
Jay Tanjuan's call: "Now's the time to take action." Lease rates have stabilized, basis is down, the right kind of building is scarce, and capital is finally starting to lean in.
Chapters
00:41 Jay Tanjuan & Sean Ward: 20+ years in SoCal industrial
