By a show of hands, I.CON West keynote speaker Christine Cooper, Ph.D., managing director and chief U.S. economist with CoStar Group, polled attendees on their economic outlook – was it bright or bleak? The group responded largely positively, with most indicating they felt the economy was doing better than not.
Movement is key in the SoCal industrial space. Industrial real estate occupies some 200 million square feet of space in the SoCal region, with much of the activity driven by the Ports of L.A. and Long Beach.
A 1.5 million-square-foot cold storage facility an hour south of Atlanta sits unassumingly among farmlands and other distribution warehouse facilities containing everything from mattresses to salad dressing to office supplies. Inside its doors though, racks and rows of premium chocolates are stacked high in an international chocolate producer’s distribution facility for the Southwest.
NAIOP’s industrial conferences are known for exceptional information from leading experts in
addition to invaluable networking. Read on for key takeaways from I.CON Cold Storage 2023, NAIOP’s
first cold storage conference.
Cold storage development often requires a specialized approach, and leasing is no exception. Five development and leasing experts closed out NAIOP’s I.CON Cold Storage in Atlanta with a look into the cold storage leasing market, demand drivers and growth expectations and the market outlook, among others.
Industrial refrigeration systems are arguably the most critical component of a refrigerated warehouse facility. The industry has evolved significantly over the past decade, and the options are vast when planning a new project or upgrading an existing system.
“Less than 2% of industrial space today is cold storage, and it probably needs to be at 15%. We’re not even in the first inning,” opened economist KC Conway in a keynote session at NAIOP’s I.CON Cold Storage. Using the analogy of peeling back an onion, Conway identified four cold storage and capital markets “layers” to “see what makes us sweat and what makes us cry.”
Understanding the many types of cold storage and controlled environments – food and beverage processing; food distribution; and public refrigerated warehousing – along with a plethora of product-specific terminologies, is the first step in diving into the world of its development. But there is much more to explore to understand the nuances of this sector.
At I.CON Cold Storage, attendees had the opportunity to hear from four very different cold storage end users who shared their decision-making criteria, key priorities and needs for cold storage facilities today. “Cold storage is far from a catchall,” noted Chris Cummings, partner with OnPace Cold. “There’s a ton of variability in terms of temperatures, design, layout and requirements for each user.”
Cold storage is a niche asset class with relatively few players compared to traditional industrial space. To share their perspectives on how investment, development and operational decisions are made for this specialized asset class, five experts took the stage at NAIOP’s I.CON Cold Storage this week in Atlanta.
