Louisville Commercial Real Estate Market Report: Q2 2024 Data

October 3, 2026 at 4:00 AM

by Rob Bergeron

Louisville Commercial Real Estate Market Report: Q2 2024 Data

This edition covers second-quarter 2024 (April–June) market data, compiled and published by Winner Commercial in October 2026 as part of our quarterly report archive.

Every figure below comes from a research report published for that quarter. When two sources measure the same market differently, we show both and explain why. When a number wasn't published for Q2 2024, we say so instead of filling the gap. For the most current numbers, see the Q3 2026 edition.

Market snapshot: Q2 2024

Industrial vacancy fell to 4.2% from 4.6% in Q1 2024, and net absorption swung to +1,604,429 square feet after a negative first quarter, per Cushman & Wakefield.
Office vacancy held at 16.5%, but the gap between downtown and the suburbs stayed wide: 21.6% in the central business district (CBD) vs. 12.6% in the suburbs, per Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Kentucky.
Shopping center vacancy rose to 4.6% from 4.1%, per Cushman & Wakefield's national retail tables, while CoStar data cited by REBusinessOnline put all Louisville retail at 3.4%.
Apartment rents averaged $1,188 a month, up 5.1% year over year, with occupancy at 94.8%, per MMG Real Estate Advisors.
3.2 million square feet of industrial space was under construction.

Industrial

Louisville industrial rebounded in Q2 2024. Cushman & Wakefield's Q2 2024 U.S. Industrial MarketBeat, which carries a statistics row for every market it covers, put Louisville's overall vacancy at 4.2%, down 40 basis points from 4.6% in Q1 2024. (A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point, so 40 basis points equals 0.4%.) Net absorption, the change in occupied space (move-ins minus move-outs), came in at +1,604,429 square feet. That followed a first quarter of -313,540 square feet, so the year-to-date total stood at 1,290,589 square feet.

Leasing activity reached 2,156,579 square feet in the quarter. Overall asking rent rose to $5.96 per square foot from $5.72 in Q1, with warehouse/distribution space at $5.95 and manufacturing space at $5.11. For context, the same table shows how fast vacancy had climbed from the lows: 2.7% in Q2 2023, 3.3% in Q3 2023 and 3.9% in Q4 2023 before peaking at 4.6% in Q1 2024.

Big-box (bulk) buildings carried the higher vacancy. Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Kentucky's following-quarter report listed Q2 2024 bulk vacancy at 7.1% and bulk asking rent at $5.93 per square foot. Per a September 2024 REBusinessOnline feature written with the firm, Louisville's bulk inventory passed 90 million square feet in Q1 2024, and bulk absorption had averaged 5.3 million square feet a year over five years.

The construction pipeline stood at 3,230,094 square feet, and 1,909,308 square feet had delivered year to date, against a total inventory of about 202 million square feet. A Louisville industrial submarket table for Q2 2024 was not publicly accessible, so this edition does not list submarket vacancy. For the corridor view, see our Louisville industrial corridors guide.

Office

Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Kentucky's Q2 2024 Louisville Office MarketBeat put overall vacancy at 16.5%. Net absorption was -2,278 square feet for the quarter and -75,260 year to date. The quarter split cleanly by location:

CBD: 21.6% vacancy, net absorption of -18,465 square feet, overall asking rent of $18.00, Class A asking rent of $19.55. CBD Class A vacancy improved to 26.7% from 27.2%, while Class B rose to 17.8% from 17.0%.
Suburban: 12.6% vacancy, net absorption of +16,187 square feet, overall asking rent of $19.97, Class A asking rent of $22.01. Suburban Class A vacancy was 14.0% (14.1% in Q1) and Class B 12.5% (12.7% in Q1).
By building class, marketwide: Class A at $20.57, Class B at $16.75, Class C at $15.06. Overall asking rent was $18.82.

Suburban Class A asking rents topped out in St. Matthews ($23.50) and Hurstbourne/Eastpoint ($23.03). Sublease space, which is space a tenant rents out to someone else (usually at a discount), totaled just 84,438 square feet, most of it suburban. Only 44,000 square feet of office was under construction, all downtown.

Downtown leasing was slow: 16,574 square feet in Q2 and 34,225 year to date, about half the 68,440 square feet leased by mid-2023. Most of it went to SomeraRoad's 500W building, where GardaWorld, Citadel, KPFF and Business First expanded. The report noted a court-appointed receiver at Meidinger Tower, which was headed for foreclosure, and said re-occupancy of the vacant Humana Tower looked unlikely. Its summary: tenant flight to quality defined both markets.

Notable leases included T-Mobile at 4803 Olympia Park Plaza (24,990 square feet), Park National Bank at 2305 River Road (11,415), Kentucky Elder Law at 661 South Hurstbourne Parkway (10,789), AECOM at 500 West Jefferson Street (7,152) and The Tarian Group at 9600 Brownsboro Road (7,075). More detail by area is in our Louisville office corridors guide.

Retail

Two sources published Q2 2024 retail figures, and they measure different property sets. Cushman & Wakefield's national retail tables track shopping centers only. They showed Louisville shopping center vacancy at 4.6%, up from 4.1% in Q1, with net absorption of -150,470 square feet and asking rent of $17.53 per square foot, up from $17.35. CoStar Group data cited in a September 2024 REBusinessOnline feature put Louisville's overall retail vacancy at 3.4% at the end of Q2, against a 4.1% national benchmark. The CoStar number includes freestanding and street retail, which tends to run tighter.

The same REBusinessOnline feature said about 322,000 square feet of new retail delivered over the prior 12 months, with grocers taking 36% of leasing and restaurants and quick-service restaurants (QSR) taking 25%. Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Kentucky's Q2 2024 Retail MarketBeat, a narrative report with no vacancy table, summed it up: vacancy is low and rents are appreciating, driven largely by new construction deliveries. Projects it named:

A new 122,000-square-foot Kroger at Highway 22 and Chamberlain Lane, slated to open late 2024.
A planned 90-acre Kroger-anchored development on Beulah Church Road with 288 apartment units, 50 single-family sites, 30,000 square feet of retail and 8,000 square feet of restaurants.
A Publix at Flat Rock Road and Shelbyville Road set for mid-2025, plus another under construction across from the Highway 22 Kroger.
Wawa stores under construction, Dutch Bros announcing market entry, and NuLu Marketplace Phase II, a 66,000-square-foot, three-story building with street-level retail, offices and a rooftop bar.

Commercial multifamily (apartment buildings)

MMG Real Estate Advisors' 2Q 2024 Louisville report put average rent at $1,188 a month, up 5.1% year over year. That was the fifth straight quarter of faster annual rent growth, up from a low of 2.6% in 1Q 2023. Occupancy was 94.8%, up 30 basis points from a year earlier.

Demand kept pace with heavy supply. The market absorbed 865 units in Q2 and 1,568 year to date, 30% more than the same period of 2023. Completions were 588 units in Q2 and 1,892 year to date, and about 3,000 units delivered over the prior 12 months, roughly 50% more than the pre-pandemic pace. Southern Indiana took about 1,200 of those units, or 40% of the market's new supply. MMG did not publish a standalone Q1 2024 Louisville report that we could find, so there is no Q1 rent or occupancy figure to compare against.

Investment sales and cap rates

A capitalization rate (cap rate) is a property's net operating income (NOI) divided by its price. None of the Q2 2024 Louisville reports we could access published a quarter-specific cap rate, so we are not citing one. Reported transaction activity:

Apartments: $56.5 million across 7 transactions in the first half of 2024, per MMG. Dollar volume was down 39% from the first half of 2023, but the deal count rose from 3.
Office: 10000 Shelbyville Road (21,000 square feet) sold for $3.1 million, or $147.62 per square foot, and 13102 Eastpoint Park Boulevard (12,456 square feet) sold for $2,305,000, or $185.05 per square foot, per Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Kentucky.

What changed from the prior quarter (Q1 2024 to Q2 2024)

Industrial vacancy: 4.6% to 4.2%. Net absorption: -313,540 to +1,604,429 square feet. Asking rent: $5.72 to $5.96. (Cushman & Wakefield)
Office overall vacancy: flat at 16.5%. Net absorption: -72,928 to -2,278 square feet. Asking rent: $18.89 to $18.83 (national tables; the local report printed $18.82). CBD absorption improved from -47,324 to -18,465 square feet, and the suburbs turned positive.
Shopping center vacancy: 4.1% to 4.6%. Net absorption: +75,781 to -150,470 square feet. Asking rent: $17.35 to $17.53. (Cushman & Wakefield)
Apartments: no Q1 2024 MMG figures were published for a direct comparison. The year-to-date totals show the first half's demand ran 30% ahead of 2023.

What it meant for owners, buyers, and tenants

Industrial tenants who shopped in Q1, when vacancy peaked at 4.6%, had the most room to negotiate. By Q2, demand was back and asking rents had risen 24 cents a foot in a single quarter. Bulk users still had choices at 7.1% bulk vacancy, and owners of new speculative space were competing for them.

Office tenants downtown held real leverage at 21.6% CBD vacancy, especially in Class A towers above 26% vacant. Suburban Class A was a different market, with asking rents above $22 and no new Class A supply coming. Owners of older downtown buildings faced the hardest math, as the Meidinger Tower receivership showed.

Apartment owners had the best quarter of the group: 5.1% annual rent growth and occupancy near 95% even with 3,000 new units delivered over the prior year. Sales were slow, though, so pricing came down to the rent roll and the trailing NOI rather than recent comps. Run the math with our commercial calculators, or request a free commercial property valuation.

Other editions in this archive

This archive is named by data quarter. The newest numbers are in the Q3 2026 Louisville commercial real estate market report. Other archive editions:

Our Louisville commercial real estate hub links everything in one place.

Talk to Winner Commercial

Winner Commercial works alongside Winner Realty. Rob Bergeron, Owner–Realtor (KY license #219325), has closed 2,000+ residential and commercial transactions since 2013, and our commercial track record lists 45 closed commercial deals. Sellers can also put a property in front of the 70,000+ buyers on OffMarket.deals. If you're weighing a sale, a purchase or a 1031 exchange, send us the property or call (502) 305-8915.

FAQ

What was Louisville's industrial vacancy rate in Q2 2024?

4.2%, down from 4.6% in Q1 2024, per Cushman & Wakefield. Net absorption was +1,604,429 square feet, and bulk (big-box) vacancy was higher at 7.1%.

What was the downtown Louisville office vacancy rate in Q2 2024?

21.6% in the central business district, vs. 12.6% in the suburbs and 16.5% overall, per Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Kentucky. CBD Class A space was 26.7% vacant.

Why are there two retail vacancy rates for Q2 2024?

They cover different property sets. Cushman & Wakefield's 4.6% counts shopping centers only. CoStar's 3.4%, cited by REBusinessOnline, covers all retail, including freestanding buildings and street retail.

What was the average apartment rent in Louisville in Q2 2024?

$1,188 a month, up 5.1% year over year, with 94.8% occupancy, per MMG Real Estate Advisors.

Is this the most recent Louisville market report?

No. This is an archive edition covering April–June 2024 data. The newest edition is the Q3 2026 report.

Sources

Let's talk

We would love to hear from you!

Get in touch