Newmark has formed a dedicated practice for industrial outdoor storage, or IOS. These are truck terminals, fleet parking lots, equipment yards and similar sites where most of the value is in the land rather than the building. Newmark’s own executives describe IOS as having grown from a fragmented niche into a core part of industrial real estate. The firm is now staffing it as a sector of its own.
The firm announced the group on Oct. 19, 2026. Its advisors across the U.S. and Canada will handle leasing for landlords and tenants and will work with Newmark’s Industrial & Logistics Capital Markets business on investment sales, debt, M&A advisory and sale-leasebacks.
What Newmark’s research says about IOS
Newmark supported the launch with numbers from its own “Lots to Gain” research report:
- IOS rents rose 123% between 2020 and 2025, which Newmark says is more than double the growth for bulk warehouses over the same period.
- At midyear 2026, IOS vacancy was 5.8%, compared with 7.4% for the industrial market overall. Newmark calls IOS “the tightest niche sector in the industrial market.”
- The sector covers an estimated 1.4 million acres in the U.S. According to Newmark, zoning and entitlement hurdles limit the supply of well-located sites, which has pushed up investor demand.
These are a brokerage’s figures about a sector it now wants to win business in, and they should be read that way. Large deals point in the same direction. Realterm and Starwood Property Trust co-originated a $672 million loan backed by IOS properties, an example of the institutional capital now lending against the asset type.
Who is running the practice
The group is led by Executive Managing Directors Adam Petrillo and Jerry Hopkins and Senior Managing Director Reid Halverson. Managing Directors Steve Korfiatis, Mike Viehmann and Cam Warren are also part of it. Newmark said its IOS specialists have worked on leasing and capital markets assignments in major logistics markets, including a sale-leaseback of a 15-property, 1.53 million-square-foot national IOS portfolio. The release did not name the parties or give a price.
“Industrial outdoor storage has evolved from a fragmented real estate niche into a critical component of modern supply chains and industrial operations,” said Jack Fraker, Newmark’s president and global head of industrial and logistics capital markets. He said demand for well-located sites has driven “rent growth that has significantly outpaced traditional bulk warehouse space over the past decade.”
Stephen Bailey, vice chairman and co-head of Texas capital markets, said IOS “has become a meaningful part of our capital markets business.” He said the new group lets the firm combine that work with “agency leasing, tenant representation, owner-occupier solutions and corporate M&A advisory nationwide.”
Viehmann said IOS sites serve “transportation fleets, construction and infrastructure companies, equipment operators or logistics providers.” Halverson said a national team gives clients “insights informed by leasing, ownership and investment activity throughout the sector.”
Newmark’s other deal of the day
Earlier on Oct. 19, Newmark also said it had arranged a $369 million Fannie Mae credit facility for April Housing. The facility covers 11 affordable housing properties in Florida. It is interest-only and consists of a $221.4 million fixed-rate draw and a $147.6 million floating-rate draw, with a buydown on the fixed-rate portion. Newmark said the work involved reviewing 24 separate regulatory agreements across the 11 properties. Evan Williams, head of affordable housing debt and structured finance, led the assignment.
What it means
On our reading, the launch says more about the market than about one firm’s org chart. When a top-tier brokerage gives a property type its own national practice, that suggests it expects enough deal flow to pay for the specialists. The release also points to the sector’s main constraint: zoning and entitlement hurdles keep the supply of well-located land tight.
Newmark, which reported more than $3.6 billion in revenue for the 12 months ended June 30, 2026, will release third-quarter results before the market opens on Oct. 29. Its last quarter brought record second-quarter revenue. More industrial coverage is on our Commercial Real Estate page.
