20% of the life science space Revista tracks is pure manufacturing. Despite the oversupply of lab properties, the manufacturing sub section does not suffer the same issues. Manufacturing space is primarily driven by pharmaceutical and life science companies, which contributes to more steady growth. Only about 1/3 of manufacturing space is owned by investors, compared to about 2/3 for lab space.
The chart below shows the overall size of the manufacturing inventory in the gray, with the purple bars representing the annual growth rate, represented by the construction completed relative to inventory. While growth in lab space is slowing down, we haven’t seen a drop off for manufacturing yet. With policy geared towards onshoring manufacturing there could be a lot of growth. A trend to watch is whether large operators who preferred to develop lab space will lean into this or just wait until the existing lab supply is soaked up.
