Prologis Inc., the largest warehouse provider in the U.S., wrapped up construction of a three-story distribution center in Seattle in October of last year. The 590,000-square-foot project, called Georgetown Crossroads, is the nation’s first logistics property to have multiple floors that are serviceable by large delivery trucks. Amazon has reportedly agreed to take up about 500,000 square feet in the warehouse, with Home Depot also planning to lease space.
Although common in the dense, costly urban centers of Asia and Europe, multistory warehouses are a novel concept in the U.S., where land is abundant and cheap and suppliers historically haven’t faced huge pressure to locate close to cities. But the future of industrial real estate is changing as e-commerce continues its rapid growth trajectory and consumers demand ever-faster delivery times.
CBRE is tracking at least 13 multistory warehouse projects completed or in the pipeline in New York City, San Francisco and Seattle. “You need to get a lot closer to people,” said David Egan, global head of industrial and logistics research at real estate brokerage CBRE. “The speed at which things have to move through the supply chain to get to wherever they need to go has increased dramatically over the past several years.”
Comments