Industrial Real Estate News

CenterPoint Properties plans to expand its Pacific Northwest footprint beyond the nearly $50 million it recently spent on two properties adjacent to the Port of Seattle.

Singapore-based Global Logistic Properties took a break from its rapid China expansion to partner with GIC in acquiring one of the largest logistics real estate portfolios in the US for $8.1 billion.

Two global logistics companies will set up shop in the Goodman Group’s newly-constructed Xiqing Logistics Park in Tianjin, reflecting the demand for modern warehousing to serve booming Chinese e-commerce business.

The millions of products ordered online in China during the November 11 “Singles Day” will have to be delivered across mainland China in the next couple of weeks, placing intense pressure on distribution networks in the country.

BNSF Railway’s relatively new intermodal terminal in the Kansas City area has attracted another shipper and fueled speculative industrial warehouse construction.

Home Depot Canada is building a more than 1 million-square-feet distribution hub near a Canadian Pacific Railway intermodal terminal in Calgary, further cementing the largest city in Alberta province as a major staging ground for western Canada.

Industrial vacancy rates in the U.S. have dipped to 7.1 percent, and could sink even lower in the fourth quarter, JLL Research says.

Amazon’s opening of three distribution centers in western Poland this week closes the remaining gap in the e-commerce giant’s European network.

A manufacturer of custom office furniture is investing $17 million to establish a Virginia distribution center at the CenterPoint Intermodal Center in Suffolk, a boost for the Port of Virginia and CSX Transportation and another sign of growing momentum for inland ports served by rail.

New U.S. inland port projects are being launched after consultations with supply chain participants, including importers and exporters, trucking companies and logistics providers.

Home furnishing giant IKEA has expanded its business with logistics property developer Goodman Group into China, signing a lease for 11,000 square meters of warehousing space in the inland Chinese city of Chengdu.

Growth expectations for the Asian middle class are staggering, but so is the scale of supply chain upgrades that will be needed to meet demand.

Shippers may have to start locating distribution centers closer to consumers, as growth in e-commerce pressing retailers to deliver goods inexpensively and quickly, and challenging traditional logistics models.

The logistics of e-commerce fulfillment continues to change along with the whims of consumers, so although industrial real estate developers really want a single model to guide their planning efforts, it’s not going to happen anytime soon.

The industrial real estate market in Southern California has come roaring back from the economic recession, especially in the vast port-dependent region known as the Inland Empire.

Yusen Logistics China opened a warehouse in Guangzhou to tap into anticipated growth in demand from the fast-growing domestic consumer products market

Home Depot is expanding its brick-and-mortar infrastructure to support growing online sales.

Strong U.S. imports are fueling growth of distribution centers near major U.S. port gateways, but there’s no sign that overcapacity is on the way, according to real estate management firm Jones Lang LaSalle.

Distribution centers and manufacturing plants are increasingly springing up around U.S. intermodal terminals, as shippers aim to reduce drayage costs and overall tightening truck capacity fuels intermodal volume growth.

Singapore logistics group CWT has announced plans to develop a 2.2-million-square-foot integrated warehouse and container port logistics complex at Jalan Buroh in the Jurong Port area of the city.

More than $15 billion will be spent on expansion of India’s cold chain during the next five years, according to a study by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

A consortium of Japan’s Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi Estate Co. has agreed to acquire a significant stake in a logistics facility developing subsidiary of Beijing Properties (Holdings) Ltd.

Rapidly rising demand for retail and e-commerce logistics in China is providing warehouse property developers with a constant stream of business in both tier one cities along the coast and in the less developed inland regions.

Wal-Mart’s recent decision to open a 1.2 million square-foot online retailing fulfillment center outside of Indianapolis suggests the state’s motto as the “crossroads of America” is well deserved.

The Chinese government has identified logistics as one of the pillar industries to support economic growth, and the phenomenal development in this area can be seen in the annual report of Global Logistics Properties, the mainland’s market leader.

What exactly is an e-commerce warehouse?

Logistics property developers in China continue to supply new warehouses to support a seemingly insatiable appetite for e-commerce distribution facilities.

There is no letup in the demand for modern logistics facilities in China, but local and foreign companies are competing for a limited number of available warehouses outside the developed logistics centers.

New Orleans Cold Storage has plans to more than double the size of its existing storage space at the Port of Charleston, South Carolina.

E-commerce sales generated some heat for The Home Depot during a frigid winter. Online purchases rose by $232 million or 40 percent in the first quarter as the home improvement retailer’s website drew more than 3 million visitors a day.

Growth at North America’s two largest cold storage companies has mushroomed in recent years, with both looking at overseas opportunities.

The warehouse and distribution center industry grew strongly in 2013, and this momentum continued into the first quarter of 2014.

While some cold storage companies are growing rapidly, the head of one midsize warehouse company says that doesn’t apply throughout the industry.

Singapore’s rising prominence as a strategic logistics hub for Southeast Asia was further illustrated by the recent investment in warehouse and distribution facilities in the city-state by DHL and Menlo Logistics.

The rapid growth in China’s e-commerce market, reflected in the hype surrounding the forthcoming U.S. IPO of Alibaba, is exposing an acute shortage of quality warehouse and distribution center space that developers and governments are rushing to address.

Goodman Group plans to increase its investment in China to $3 billion in the next three to four years, Philip Pearce, the Australia-listed global industrial property developer’s China country manager, said in Shanghai.

The Swiss manufacturer of key distribution system components is expanding its own distribution and manufacturing footprint in the U.S. as e-commerce demand fuels distribution center construction.

The inland port of Monterrey, Mexico, is attracting new shippers, and new customs legislation will allow existing and future tenants to more easily tap foreign trade zone benefits.

It begins with a leaky faucet, or perhaps a broken piece of crown molding, or a washing machine, or ceiling fan. Something needs to be fixed, replaced, improved or installed — and the right tools are required to do it. That specific need generates the demand that sets the supply chain in motion at The Home Depot, and increasingly that demand first appears as an online order placed through the retailer’s website.