After years of explosive growth, European logistics real estate enters a more mature phase: structurally solid demand, reduced speculative development, energy as a new critical driver. In Italy, 2025 absorption reached 2.5 million square metres.
European logistics real estate has entered a phase of structured maturity. Following years of explosive growth — first driven by e-commerce expansion, then by post-pandemic supply chain reorganisation — the sector is normalising. This is not a structural weakening; it is a repricing of expectations toward a more sustainable baseline.
In Italy, Scenari Immobiliari data for 2025 show 2.5 million square metres of absorption (+7% year-on-year) and €2.05 billion in investment volumes (+17%), with momentum accelerating in H2. Across Europe, CBRE tracked over €40.6 billion in industrial and logistics investment in 2025 — below 2021-2022 peaks, but signalling a disciplined institutional re-engagement.
Q1 2026 in Italy recorded approximately €430 million in logistics investment, around 12% of total real estate transactions. The 30% year-on-year contraction reflects a base-effect distortion from the exceptional portfolio deals that inflated Q1 2025. Underlying quality remains solid: 40% of volumes were core or core-plus assets, and end-user acquisitions accounted for 30%.
Two themes shape the sector's trajectory: energy and Build-to-Suit.
Energy has become both a constraint and a strategic driver. Logistics warehouses are now energy infrastructure. Prologis Italy reported approximately 24 MWp of installed solar capacity by end-2025, avoiding over 8,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually through its SolarSmart programme. In 2026, its Lodi DC8 facility will host the largest self-consumption photovoltaic plant ever developed by the group in Europe (5 MWp). At the same time, CBRE flags lengthening grid connection timelines across several European markets — a growing structural constraint on large-scale speculative development. Energy availability is no longer a given; it is a variable to be managed at the design stage.
Build-to-Suit increasingly defines new supply: less speculative exposure, higher asset quality, and tighter alignment between a tenant's operational requirements and the physical specifications of the building. Demand is concentrated in primary logistics corridors — the areas around Milan, Bologna, Verona, Rome — where quality product availability remains structurally tight.
CBRE projects prime logistics rent growth to slow to approximately 1.8% in 2026 — slower than prior years, but more stable. That profile — predictable income growth, structurally supported demand, limited speculative new supply — is precisely what core real estate should look like. The logistics sector has grown up. Mature markets reward quality, not quantity.