The Situation
Details have been anonymized to protect the tenant and owner's privacy.
In late 2025, a private industrial owner came to CRES Utah after four months of vacancy on a 12,000 SF flex building in the Salt Lake City central industrial corridor. The space had strong bones: 22-ft clear heights, 3 dock-level doors, 2 grade-level doors, 3,000 SF of upgraded office, and an asking rate of $11.00/SF NNN, competitive for the submarket.
The previous listing had been handled by a generalist commercial broker who relied primarily on LoopNet for exposure. In four months: 6 tours, no offers, and no pipeline.
We took the listing on February 1st. The lease was executed on February 28th.
What We Did Differently
Step 1: Rebuilt the Tenant Profile (Days 1–3)
Before we wrote a single line of marketing copy, we defined the ideal tenant for this building. Given the size range (12,000 SF), flex configuration, upgraded office, and central SLC location, the target profile was clear: light manufacturing, R&D, medical device, or tech-adjacent operations in the 15–40 employee range, requiring a mix of warehouse and quality office space.
This ruled out logistics operators (too small for their dock requirements), pure office tenants (not enough office percentage), and bulk distribution users (wrong configuration). Knowing who we were targeting let us focus all outreach on the right decision-makers.
Step 2: Direct Broker Outreach, Not Passive Listing (Days 1–5)
The first five days of the listing were spent on the phone. We contacted 31 active tenant-rep brokers in the Salt Lake market, specifically those known to represent clients in the target profile. We described the building, the owner's timeline, and the owner's flexibility on terms. We asked for requirements.
Within the first week, we had 4 confirmed tours booked from broker referrals alone. Two of those tours came from brokers with active requirements that had not yet been listed anywhere. We were the first call they made because we had called them first.
Step 3: Targeted Direct-to-Tenant Outreach (Days 3–10)
Parallel to broker outreach, we ran a targeted company outreach campaign to 18 companies in the Salt Lake Valley that fit the tenant profile and had known facility needs. This list was built from our internal database of expanding companies, conversations from industry events, and publicly available information on growing businesses in the metro.
Three of those 18 companies responded with interest. One became the eventual tenant: a company that had no active broker and was not yet in formal search mode, but whose lease was expiring in 90 days and who needed to move.
Step 4: Managed the Process to Signed Lease (Days 15–30)
Two competing offers emerged by day 15. We structured a best-and-final round that allowed the owner to select the strongest credit and most favorable terms: a five-year lease with 3% annual escalations and no free rent, starting March 1st.
The final economics were meaningfully better than the owner's minimum acceptable terms. The lease was executed in 30 days from listing.
The Lesson
The Salt Lake City warehouse and flex market has enough demand to lease well-positioned product quickly. If you're actively in front of the right people. Passive listing doesn't work in a broker-driven market. Direct outreach, a precise tenant profile, and fast tour-to-offer conversion are what separate a 30-day lease from a 4-month vacancy.
If your building has been sitting, we'd like to take a look. Contact CRES Utah for a free leasing strategy review.
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