Making Multistory Industrial Work
Posted on October 10, 2019
By Kathryn Hamilton
E-commerce is driving growth in neighborhoods where malls used to stand tall, and multistory is the name of the game in industrial development today. In Brooklyn, an 18-acre site in the Red Hook district will be the future home to a four-story, 1.3-million-square-foot distribution center – the largest multistory warehouse in the U.S. It’s groundbreaking in its scope and design, but not without its own issues. So what are the challenges with multistory and how can developers make it work? A panel at NAIOP’s I.CON East 2019 sought to answer the tough questions.
Leslie Lanne, managing director with JLL, said the primary driver behind multistory is getting as close as possible to the consumer base. This proximity is more than just mileage – it’s the time it takes to get the goods to the consumer. For example, a warehouse in New Jersey is located only five miles from Brooklyn, but it can be tough to achieve a trip from the warehouse to consumers and back in less than two hours.