Pittsburgh Industrial Real Estate Market Overview
After a slow first half of the year, Pittsburgh’s industrial leasing activity gained meaningful traction in the third quarter, bringing total leasing volume to within 5% of the 8-year historical average. This improvement has been driven primarily by larger transactions, led by tenants in the energy, power, and manufacturing sectors, which collectively comprise many of this year’s new leases over 75K SF. This trend underscores growing momentum across production and technology-linked industries.
Despite the uptick in larger-sized deals, activity among small and mid-size tenants remains well below historic norms, particularly in the 10K – 25K SF range. Many companies in this segment continue to approach new commitments cautiously, constrained by higher costs, labor challenges, and extended decision timelines. These transactions typically account for a meaningful share of the deal count in the market and are currently down 34% year to date from historical averages. Furthermore, tenants in this size range have options if searching for space.
Overall, Pittsburgh’s industrial real estate fundamentals remain comparatively healthy. The local market has avoided overbuilding, which helps maintain a balanced supply environment, particularly for larger sized availabilities. Ongoing investment across the energy, power, and manufacturing sectors continues to support demand. These factors position the market favorably heading into late 2025, with several significant projects already completed early in the fourth quarter.
2025 Trends to Watch:
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The lack of new speculative construction over the last 12-24 months has contributed to dwindling first generation availabilities.
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The availability of power is a large and increasing priority for decision making, particularly for large projects.
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Two (2) leases above 200K SF were completed in October 2025, generating positive market momentum to close out the year.
