A thriving job market is great for commercial real estate, especially when it demands industrial sites. After decades in China, several American-owned manufacturers are bringing their jobs back to American soil. Property developers and owners in a few unlikely areas are benefiting from reshoring efforts.  Why the Switch? The American skilled labor workforce has always had its appeal. That skills, however, sometimes came at a cost that seemed prohibitive to many manufacturers. Times are changing. Manufacturers are discovering that automation may help them experience significant savings on labor costs. Automated plants, staffed by a small group of highly qualified tech professionals, can cost less than foreign factories with thousands of laborers. A growing number of companies are finding that the costs of manufacturing—coupled with transportation and distribution expenses—don’t offer the savings that they once did. Tray Anderson, lead of logistics and industrial services in the Americas for Cushman & Wakefield, suggests that reverse logistics are a key factor in reshoring decisions. “Typically, we see an appetite for reshoring if there is an eight to 12 percent difference in overall costs [compared to manufacturing products outside the U.S.],” said Anderson. That margin has decreased when manufacturers consider capital investment, labor costs, logistics, storage, depreciation, operations, and product returns as well as losses from product obsolescence that occurs when shipping products between continents, he says. Then there are the tariffs. A poll issued by the American Chamber of Commerce and its partner in Shanghai reveals the impact of recent tax. This year, about 40 percent of respondents state that they “are considering or have relocated manufacturing facilities outside of China.” Comparatively, the 2018 survey stated that only 30 percent of manufacturers had considered “partial relocation.” America has further sweetened the pot for companies with local and...