Louisville Commercial Real Estate Market Report: Q3 2024 Data

October 3, 2026 at 4:00 AM

by Rob Bergeron

Louisville Commercial Real Estate Market Report: Q3 2024 Data

This edition covers third-quarter 2024 (July–September) 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 Q3 2024, we say so instead of filling the gap. For the most current numbers, see the Q3 2026 edition.

Market snapshot: Q3 2024

Industrial vacancy slipped to 4.1% from 4.2%, and bulk (big-box) vacancy fell to 6.5% from 7.1%, per Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Kentucky.
Industrial leasing slowed: 5.1 million square feet year to date, down from 7.8 million at the same point in 2023.
Office vacancy improved to 16.2% from 16.5%, with +73,934 square feet of net absorption, per Cushman & Wakefield's national office tables.
Shopping center vacancy rose to 4.8% from 4.6%, per Cushman & Wakefield's national retail tables.
Apartment rents averaged $1,196 a month, up 3.4% year over year, with occupancy at 94.5%, per MMG Real Estate Advisors.

Industrial

Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Kentucky's Q3 2024 Industrial MarketBeat put overall vacancy at 4.1%, down 10 basis points from 4.2% in Q2. (A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point, so 10 basis points equals 0.1%.) Net absorption, the change in occupied space (move-ins minus move-outs), was +280,174 square feet for the quarter and about 1.6 million year to date.

The bigger move was in bulk buildings. Bulk vacancy dropped to 6.5% from 7.1%, bulk net absorption was +151,398 square feet in Q3 and 2,021,447 year to date, and bulk asking rent rose to $6.11 per square foot from $5.93. The weighted average warehouse/distribution asking rent was $6.02.

Leasing was the soft spot. Tenants signed 1,377,082 square feet in Q3 and 5,133,165 year to date, against 7,793,372 square feet through Q3 2023. The quarter's largest deals were all in the West/Southwest submarket: GXO Logistics' 505,000-square-foot sale-leaseback, eJoov's 212,500-square-foot new lease and FTI Buyer's 112,181-square-foot new lease. A sale-leaseback is when an owner-occupant sells its building and leases it back, turning real estate into cash.

The pipeline grew to 3,684,776 square feet under construction, 2,039,405 of it speculative, meaning built without a signed tenant. Year-to-date completions reached 1,906,308 square feet, 1,734,308 of it bulk. A September 2024 REBusinessOnline feature written with Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Kentucky counted 7.5 million square feet of bulk space available, about 3.5 million of it recently completed speculative construction.

Submarket vacancy varied widely:

East: 1.1% vacancy on 28.3 million square feet, with 398,400 square feet of year-to-date absorption.
South, the largest at 60.7 million square feet: 2.0%.
Southern Indiana: 3.4%, with 2.3 million square feet under construction, the most of any submarket.
Central: 3.6%. West/Southwest: 4.8%. Bullitt County: 6.4%.
Shelby County: 20.8% on 10.0 million square feet, the highest by far.

Cushman & Wakefield's outlook expected vacancy to trend down and rents to keep rising, with debt market uncertainty and high construction costs holding back new speculative starts. For a corridor-by-corridor view, see our Louisville industrial corridors guide.

Office

For Q3 2024, the public Louisville office figures come from the market statistics tables in Cushman & Wakefield's Q3 2024 U.S. Office MarketBeat. Overall vacancy was 16.2%, down from 16.5% in Q2. Net absorption was +73,934 square feet, the first positive quarter of 2024 after -72,928 in Q1 and -2,278 in Q2. Year-to-date leasing totaled 577,094 square feet.

Overall asking rent was $18.68 per square foot, down from $18.83 in Q2, and Class A asking rent was $20.39. Inventory was 20,493,363 square feet, and 44,000 square feet was under construction, unchanged from Q2.

What's missing: the local Q3 2024 Louisville Office MarketBeat, which carries the downtown vs. suburban split, was not publicly accessible when we compiled this edition, and we could not find a Q3 2024 Louisville office report from CBRE. So this edition does not print Q3 central business district (CBD) or suburban vacancy. The last published split, for Q2 2024, was 21.6% CBD and 12.6% suburban. More detail by area is in our Louisville office corridors guide.

Retail

Cushman & Wakefield's national retail tables, which track shopping centers only, put Louisville shopping center vacancy at 4.8% in Q3 2024, up from 4.6% in Q2 and 4.1% in Q1. Net absorption was -69,364 square feet, the second negative quarter in a row, and asking rent rose to $17.59 per square foot from $17.53. We could not find a Q3 2024 all-retail vacancy rate (which would include freestanding and street retail) in the public reports we reviewed.

The rising shopping center vacancy sat alongside steady new-store activity. A September 2024 REBusinessOnline feature on Louisville retail reported:

Publix opened its first Kentucky store on Old Henry Road and announced two more.
Kroger was opening a new east Louisville store in mid-September, with two more in planning.
BJ's Wholesale Club was converting the former Sears on the Outer Loop, with a projected Q2 2025 opening.
New-to-market restaurants included The Capital Grille, Jack in the Box, Walk-On's Sports Bistreaux and Twin Peaks, and 7 Brew Coffee had opened eight locations in 18 months.
Wawa had one store under construction and six more projects announced, on the way to a target of 40 stores across Kentucky and Southern Indiana.

Commercial multifamily (apartment buildings)

MMG Real Estate Advisors' 3Q 2024 Louisville report put average rent at $1,196 a month, up 3.4% year over year, and occupancy at 94.5%, up 20 basis points from a year earlier. The market absorbed 1,015 units in Q3 and 2,355 year to date, while 1,496 units completed in the quarter and 3,430 year to date. By area, Shelby and Spencer counties ran about 98% occupied with 7.4% to 8.5% annual rent growth, downtown Louisville was lowest at about 91%, and Southern Indiana, home to the most new construction, posted 2.1% rent growth.

Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Kentucky's Q3 2024 multifamily report tracks a different property set. It counted 2,684 units delivered over the past 12 months, 4,042 under construction (1,042 in Jeffersonville and 932 in Okolona), 2,314 planned and 13,952 proposed. Its submarket table showed wide spreads:

Springhurst: $1,519 average rent, 4.0% vacancy. Douglass Hills: $1,472, 4.5%.
Central/Downtown: $1,424, 11.6%. East/Downtown: $1,320, 4.8%.
Jeffersontown: $1,315, 5.4%. Okolona/Hillview: $1,219, 3.3%.
Southern Indiana: Jeffersonville $1,216 and 4.7%, Clarksville $1,176 and 10.3%, New Albany $1,101 and 5.1%.

MMG's pipeline count differs because it separates projects still under construction (1,667 units across 8 projects) from those already in lease-up (3,581 units across 14 projects). Both are accurate for what they measure.

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 Q3 2024 Louisville reports we could access published a quarter-specific cap rate in text, so we are not citing one. Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Kentucky noted that the rise in the 10-year Treasury yield and higher interest expense had slowed Louisville apartment sales. Reported transactions:

Apartments: Century Baxter Avenue (261 units, Class A) sold to Centennial Holding Company for about $119,000 per unit, and Cooper Creek (123 units, Class B, Okolona) sold to Covenant Capital Group for about $160,000 per unit, per Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Kentucky.
Industrial: GXO Logistics' 505,000-square-foot sale-leaseback in West/Southwest. The price was not published.

What changed from the prior quarter (Q2 2024 to Q3 2024)

Industrial vacancy: 4.2% to 4.1%. Bulk vacancy: 7.1% to 6.5%. Bulk asking rent: $5.93 to $6.11. Under construction: 3.2 million to 3.7 million square feet. (Cushman & Wakefield)
Industrial net absorption: +1.6 million square feet in Q2 to +280,174 in Q3. Positive, but much slower.
Office vacancy: 16.5% to 16.2%. Net absorption: -2,278 to +73,934 square feet. Asking rent: $18.83 to $18.68. (Cushman & Wakefield national tables)
Shopping center vacancy: 4.6% to 4.8%. Asking rent: $17.53 to $17.59.
Apartments (MMG): rent $1,188 to $1,196; annual rent growth slowed from 5.1% to 3.4%; occupancy 94.8% to 94.5%; quarterly absorption 865 to 1,015 units.

One note on revisions: Cushman & Wakefield's Q4 2024 tables later restated Q3 office vacancy at 16.0% and Q2 at 16.2%. This edition uses the figures as first published for Q3. The Q4 2024 edition explains the restatement.

What it meant for owners, buyers, and tenants

Bulk industrial tenants were still in a good spot: 6.5% bulk vacancy and millions of square feet of new speculative space to choose from. Owners were filling it, though, and bulk asking rent jumped 18 cents in one quarter. In Shelby County, at 20.8% vacancy, tenants had the most leverage in the metro. In the East submarket, at 1.1%, they had almost none.

Office was stabilizing at the margins, with the first positive absorption of the year. Without a published Q3 downtown vs. suburban split, tenants should treat the Q2 gap, 21.6% CBD vs. 12.6% suburban, as the best available guide.

Apartment owners saw rent growth cool from 5.1% to 3.4% as completions hit 1,496 units in a single quarter. Buyers had a real data point in the Century Baxter and Cooper Creek sales, but with sales slowed by interest costs, the rent roll and trailing NOI mattered more than 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 Q3 2024?

4.1%, down from 4.2% in Q2, per Cushman & Wakefield | Commercial Kentucky. Bulk vacancy was 6.5%, and net absorption was +280,174 square feet.

Which Louisville industrial submarket had the highest vacancy in Q3 2024?

Shelby County, at 20.8%. The East submarket was tightest at 1.1%, and the South submarket, the largest, was at 2.0%.

What was Louisville's office vacancy rate in Q3 2024?

16.2% overall, per Cushman & Wakefield's Q3 2024 national office tables, with +73,934 square feet of net absorption. A downtown vs. suburban split for Q3 was not publicly available.

What was the average apartment rent in Louisville in Q3 2024?

$1,196 a month, up 3.4% year over year, with 94.5% occupancy, per MMG Real Estate Advisors.

Is this the most recent Louisville market report?

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

Sources

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