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Last week we mapped Phoenix’s industrial market using Uber H3 technology to analyze the market using hexagons. Each hexagon, which covers roughly two square miles, tells its own story, but all of them holistically reveal how the Phoenix logistics market has evolved over decades.

Below we categorize each hexagon by the average age (horizontal axis) and clear height (vertical axis). The results show how ceiling heights have trended upward across time.

The oldest (pre-1980s) stock, with a sub-15-foot clear height, is generally clustered near the airport. The advent of national category killer retail chains – which relied on regional logistics hubs and ‘just-in-time’ inventory management systems – brought about change in the 1980s and 1990s. Distributors learned that more cubic square feet, rather than wider buildings, held the key to more efficient operations.

The next big boom happened during the 2010s when e-commerce blossomed, markedly increasing commercial throughput. This created even more need for higher ceiling heights at newly constructed properties. The average clear height for hexagons with properties mostly constructed since 2020 is nearly 50% more than those built during the 2000s. Because Phoenix increasingly serves the Southern California market many of these newer properties are clustered along the metro’s western fringe (e.g., Citrus Park and Goodyear).