Industrial real estate

Online retails sales in the U.S. marked another record-breaking quarter in the first three months of 2015 after an especially harsh winter kept many consumers inside, shopping from the warmth of their own homes.

One developer is betting big on BNSF Railway’s Kansas City logistics park. NorthPoint Development this week announced the construction of a 822,104-square-foot speculative building at the park.

General Mills will be the first tenant at a tri-modal logistics facility near Manchester, England, set to open next year. The inland port will offer rail, truck and short-sea shipping links.

Available warehousing and distribution space is getting harder to find and more expensive as demand outpaces construction, according to Jones Lang LaSalle.

Development of Panama Pacifico, a master-planned community located on the former U.S. Howard Air Force Base near the canal, offers more than 516,000 square feet of expansions and new development projects, and the site has more than 365,000 square feet of available Class A office space, allowing for long-term growth opportunities.

State-owned logistics provider Container Corporation of India has opened a $1.6 million temperature-controlled facility in Adarsh Nagar, near Delhi, the latest investment in line with parent Railways’ fiscal year 2015-16 budget plan announcement last month.

Canadian National Railway on Tuesday announced plans to build a $196 million intermodal and logistics hub outside of Toronto as its existing terminal serving Canada’s largest urban center nears capacity and regional freight demand builds.

Singapore-based Global Logistic Properties Limited (GLP) has completed the acquisition of one of the largest logistics platforms in the U.S. for $8.1 billion.

Annual costs to operate a hypothetical 500,000-square-foot distribution center with 150 employees could range from $11.3 million to $15 million among U.S. cities surveyed by a national site-selection company.

After attracting only one tenants — a government agency— in roughly eight years, a former U.S. Air Force base turned logistics park in the Kansas City area has announced three new shipper tenants in a span of five months.

Drugstore chain Rite Aid Corp. plans to build a 900,000-square-foot distribution center in Spartanburg, South Carolina., that will consolidate three existing DCs and serve 1,000 stores in the Southeast U.S.

Main drivers of industrial real estate — cargo volumes at seaports, rail freight volumes, gains in gross domestic product, increasing retail sales and a gradually improving housing market — all indicate net positive absorption will continue.

A scarce supply of industrial land will continue to push up warehouse rentals in Hong Kong, keeping landlords in the pound seats while ramping up operating costs for third party logistics providers.

Demand for U.S. industrial property will remain strong for at least the next 24 months even though the market for manufacturing and distribution facilities has experienced four years of continuous growth, according to the latest U.S. Industrial Outlook published this week by CBRE Research.

A road improvement project will help make the industrial development around BNSF’s relatively new intermodal rail terminal in the Kansas City area more attractive when work is completed in 2016.

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.