Pattillo Industrial Real Estate is considering construction of a 1.11 million-square-foot warehouse in its NorthPoint Industrial Park in North Jacksonville.
Peter Anderson, vice president of new investments for Atlanta-based Pattillo, said the company is preparing to meet demand.
“We are confirming our ability to construct a building of this size,” Anderson said March 16 by email.
He said there are no commitments from prospects, but interest is surfacing after several years of soft demand for large buildings.
“The WSJ and others are forecasting an increase in demand in coming years. We hope to be ready,” Anderson said, referring to a March 11 report in The Wall Street Journal.
City utility JEA is reviewing a service availability determination request for Building 11 at 3855 Port Jacksonville Parkway at NorthPoint.
Moore Civil Consulting Inc. of Perry, Georgia, is the applicant.
A JEA request means a project is being explored.
The overall plan shows a proposed building of 1.11 million square feet, truck courts and 430 proposed parking spaces on 66.43 acres.
The plans also say the building will be 1.11 million square feet, indicating plans are preliminary.
NorthPoint is at northwest Port Jacksonville Parkway and New Berlin Road, north of Faye Road and Interstate 295.
Anderson said construction costs are typically $70 to $90 per square foot for the base building, without tenant build-out. That means the project could be $77.8 million to $100 million to build.
The Wall Street Journal report said demand is bouncing back for the biggest warehouses after several years of slow leasing activity.
It reported that companies signed 146 leases across the U.S. for warehouses of more than 500,000 square feet last year, up more than 31% from the previous year to the highest level since 2022, citing real-estate firm Cushman & Wakefield.
It said 42 agreements were signed in the fourth quarter, the most activity in a quarter since the third quarter of 2022.
The WSJ said the uptick in demand is being driven by third-party logistics companies and manufacturers, including companies moving production to the U.S. from overseas.
Other dynamics include demand by companies supplying electrical systems, power racks and other hardware to support data-center build-outs across the U.S., and that companies are nearing the end of lease agreements made during the pandemic.
In Jacksonville, year-end real estate market reports showed that, depending how it’s measured, the amount of largely speculative industrial space that hit the market in 2025 totaled up to 7 million square feet.
That drove up rents, as landlords asked premium rates for the new space, and boosted vacancy to a range of 9.2% to 11%, up substantially from the roughly 5% rate just a year before.
Firms also found that the pipeline slowed and just under a million square feet of industrial space is expected to be completed and ready for tenant build-out in 2026, meaning more space might be needed for tenants needing buildings.
Real estate firm CBRE reported that during 2025, there were 213 leases totaling 6.3 million square feet of space, down from 236 leases for 7.6 million square feet the year before.
Just over half of the 2025 deals were tenants renewing their leases. NAI Hallmark reported increased demand from regional companies, highlighted by third-party logistics activity and the execution of new leases exceeding 100,000 square feet in the last quarter.
Vacancy rates were reported at a 10% range in the North Jacksonville market, with almost 52 million square feet of space.
Anderson wrote in a Daily Record guest column Feb. 18, 2026, that after five years of constrained supply and rapidly increasing rental rates, relief had arrived for Jacksonville’s industrial tenants.
He wrote that the market was reaching equilibrium as Jacksonville continued to attract industry due to rent affordability, the available labor force and business environment.
Anderson said geography and interstate access benefit Jacksonville; newly entitled industrial land provides a supply available for build-to-suit projects; and the “once volatile construction market has also calmed.”
“All in all, market equilibrium eliminates uncertainty, which bodes well for a robust Jacksonville industrial market in 2026,” he concluded.