DC Velocity - December 2019

BY VICTORIA KICKHAM, SENIOR EDITOR

URBAN LOGISTICS Strategy

From light-industrial properties to large multistory facilities, the urban logistics real-estate landscape is changing as shippers get a handle on the best warehousing strategies to tackle their “last-touch” challenges.

THE PUSH TO GET PRODUCTS CLOSER TO CONSUMERS IS CHANGING THE logistics landscape, especially in densely populated urban areas where congestion, limited space, and high real-estate prices make it difficult to tackle last-mile delivery challenges. Despite the obstacles, trends are emerging in the commercial real-estate market that highlight two very different approaches to urban warehousing and fulfillment on the rise today: increasing interest in larger, multistory facilities that leverage advanced technology and vertical space configuration, and growing demand for small, light-industrial properties of less than 120,000 square feet. Although the approaches are different, the end-game is the same: to meet increasingly fast delivery expectations in the most efficient way possible.

“Delivery is the ‘new wave’ for fulfillment,” Andrew Chung, founder and CEO of industrial developer Innovo Property Group (IPG), explains, emphasizing the effect of e-commerce on the warehousing and logistics landscape. “It’s kind of like how Amazon changed the way that people shop. Now, [e-commerce is] changing the way that goods get delivered. [And] that’s changing the infrastructure in general.”