LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa.-\u00a0The amount of industrial space under construction in the Lehigh Valley is at a two-year high, according to a report issued by\u00a0Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (LVEDC).\u00a0<\/p>\n
The report, using data from\u00a0commercial real estate data company CoStar, shows that more than 2.2 million square feet of space was under construction in Lehigh and Northampton counties during the second quarter of 2026 (April-June).<\/p>\n
Also,\u00a0net absorption (the difference between the total space occupied and the total space vacated) was positive for the first time in two years, the report said, at 1.45 million square feet.<\/p>\n
It appears that at least some companies are thinking smaller; according to the report, the vacancy rate for industrial properties of less than 100,000 square feet was 4.8%, about half the rate of larger buildings, at 9.6%.<\/p>\n
While the 2.2 million square feet of\u00a0industrial construction represents an uptick among recent tallies, and a high since 2024, the market generally has been on a cooling trend- with some exceptions- since early 2020, when there was more than 9 million square feet of industrial real estate under construction.<\/p>\n
Even so, the overall growth is noteworthy. Currently, the Lehigh Valley has 154.5 million square feet of industrial\/flex space, the report said. For the second quarter of 2020, that number was recorded as 126.9 million square feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Also, Lehigh and Northampton counties currently have 28 million square feet of office space, LVEDC reported, with 110,500 square feet under construction.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
It’s still cheaper to rent office space in the Lehigh Valley region compared to neighboring areas. According to data from CBRE, the average in Berks, Lehigh, and Northampton counties is $23.90 per square foot. In suburban Philadelphia, that number is $30.63. In northern New Jersey, it’s $33.75.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa.-\u00a0The amount of industrial space under construction in the Lehigh Valley is at a two-year high,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,153,155,154,805],"class_list":["post-288587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-lehighvalley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}