In the spring of 2020, Las Vegas was a ghost town. With the COVID-19 pandemic in full swing, casinos and restaurants were shut down, sending the city’s unemployment rate soaring to the highest in the nation.
It was hardly an obvious moment to make a big bet on Las Vegas, especially for a distribution center. “Las Vegas has never been one of those stalwart industrial markets like Long Beach, Inland Empire, or central New Jersey,” says Ryan Severino, head of research for real estate investment firm BGO. “It was a small, quirky market.”