In reversal of former trend, distribution, logistics, and industrial sites are increasingly being located in built up areasBy Peter A. Buxbaum, AJOTTrends in the location of industrial sites and logistics centers have seen a reversal since the 1990s. Back then, lower fuel costs and greater land availability lured industrial developers and occupants to the periphery of population centers, known as greenfield sites. But with fuel prices higher and unstable and the emergence of complex and increasingly global supply chains, urban or more developed locations have become more desirable. The Los Angeles industrial real estate market is a case in point. With over 900 million square feet of space, Los Angeles is the largest industrial real estate market in the country. The size of the industrial market is a direct result of the city’s proximity to the port of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which combined handle more imports than any other port complex in the United States. Another important factor is the population of 21 million in Southern California. As the U.S. economy has become based more on trade than on manufacturing, transportation and logistics sites have become a more important component of the industrial real estate market. In urban centers like Los Angeles, and elsewhere, land available for development is rare or nonexistent, driving developers and their customers to look to developed areas and existing structures for location opportunities. This counter-trend to the greenfield buildup of the 1990s, denoting development within already built up, often urban, areas, is known as infill. Recent research has shown that developers and business operators alike receive a bigger bang for that buck in today’s economic environment by choosing infill instead of greenfield locations. CenterPoint Properties, a Chicago-based industrial and transportation-related property company, established in 1984, is focused on the development, ownership and management of industrial real estate and related rail, road and port infrastructure in places like Savannah, Milwaukee, Chicago, Kansas City, Houston, and Oakland. The company announced last year that Coastal Logistics Group, Inc. had signed a long-term lease for a 320,000 square feet rail-served facility at CenterPoint Intermodal Center-Savannah (CIC-Savannah), the first build-to-suit tenant for the site. CIC-Savannah is a 233-acre intermodal center located four miles from the Georgia Port Authority’s facility in Savannah. CLG is relocating its corporate headquarters to CIC-Savannah and will be expanding its warehouse space and service offerings. CLG is a third-party logistics provider specializing in port services, distribution, packing and crating, and manufacturing support. CenterPoint Properties owns 8,000 acres within its intermodal logistics centers, owns and manages 27.8 million square feet of warehouse and industrial real estate, and is developing 9,000 acres in intermodal rail and port markets. Once a publicly traded company, CenterPoint was acquired in 2006 by CalEast Global Logistics, a wholly owned subsidiary of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the largest pension fund in the United States. The new facility at CIC-Savannah has direct access to the Norfolk Southern rail service and Norfolk Southern Dillard Intermodal Yard and is located near I-95 and I-16. “The convenient location will allow us to expand delivery options ensuring a cost-efficient logistics chain for products,” said Chad Barrow, CLG’s president. CLG’s facility will feature 320,000 square feet of Norfolk Southern rail service with 32’ clear ceilings, 69 trailer parking spaces, 41 dock doors and 2 drive-in doors. Adding rail service to their CLG’s portfolio, in addition to locating adjacent to the Norfolk Southern yard and the port, will provide its customers with significant transportation savings, according to Brian McKiernan, vice president at CenterPoint Properties. “We are confident that the transportation advantages achieved by locatin