Podcast: Coming Soon: On the Shop Floor

Location Cubed

Key Points:

• Horn and Allred’s impending launch of the On the Shop Floor manufacturing podcast series
• Vacancies increased in the second half of 2022, indicating a softening in the leasing market
• The outlook for the manufacturing market’s economy in 2023

There are labor shortages in a variety of industries—especially manufacturing. The National Association of Manufacturers predicts there may be a gap of 2.1 million workers amounting to one trillion dollars by 2030. Clearly, something is stirring in the manufacturing industry economy. But what is the forecast for the immediate future?

On today’s episode of Location Cubed, a Weaver: Beyond the Numbers podcast, Hosts Howard Altshuler, Partner-in-Charge of Real Estate and Construction Services, and Rob Nowak, Partner in Tax Services at Weaver, are joined by Colby Horn, Partner-in-Charge of Manufacturing, Distribution and Retail Services at Weaver, and Jody Allred, Partner-in-Charge of Manufacturing, Distribution and Retail Services at Weaver, to talk about their new podcast launch and trends impacting warehouse space and leasing.

Horn explained why warehousing space was at a premium due to the pandemic. “Obviously, during COVID, people weren’t able to attend concerts, sports events and other activities. Their spending shifted to more to tangible things like buying clothes or furniture. That switch definitely created stress on the supply chain. It’s been forcing a lot of our clients or people in our industry to over purchase, and with that over purchasing, warehouse space is at a premium.”

However, that premium is eroding with vacancies up across the warehouse leasing market.

The slowdown in activity is not affecting the market at the same rate or velocity. Allred provided some projections on what is in store for the manufacturing economy based on recent surveys.

“I think what we’re seeing depends on geography, it depends on what industry within manufacturing distribution retail you’re in.”

What the market is really telling us is that uncertainty has returned and we all hope for a soft landing recession but need to continue contingency planning that will allow for nimble market response.

Subscribe to the Location Cubed podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify for the next episode of this series.

Learn about upcoming real estate webinars and subscribe to Weaver’s event invite list.

©2023

Colby Horn is Partner-in-Charge of Manufacturing, Distribution and Retail Services at Weaver and has more than 17 years of experience in auditing, accounting, and consulting. Colby’s practice emphasis has been focused on providing financial statement attestation for both non-public and public clients, employee benefit plan audits, as well as advising clients in all aspects of mergers, acquisitions, divestitures and due diligence activities. He attended the University of North Texas, where he earned a BS in Accounting.

Jody Allred is Partner-in-Charge of Manufacturing, Distribution and Retail Services at Weaver and has more than 20 years of experience in public accounting, a deep background in both financial statement audit and advisory services, and a passion for client service. His current professional emphasis is on internal audit (both outsourced and co-sourced), enterprise risk management, Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) compliance, business process improvement consulting, joint interest auditing, and accounting standard adoption consulting. Jody holds a BA and MA in Accounting from Abilene Christian University. Jody specializes in governance, risk, and compliance management for various sectors such as manufacturing, distribution, oil and gas, and construction.