In the Georgetown Crossroads district of south Seattle, the next generation of American distribution center design is being ushered in.
There, logistics development giant ProLogis (NYSE:PLD) has erected the nation’s first multi-story industrial warehouse, a three-level, 590,000 square-foot facility located minutes from downtown, near the Port of Seattle, and close to multiple rail nodes. It has not yet announced any customer sign-ups. The price tag wasn’t disclosed and company officials were unavailable today to comment.
The bottom two levels are dedicated for fulfillment. The first floor, occupying more than 239,000 square feet, has a 28-foot clear height, 130 truck courts, and 60 truck aprons. The second floor, with more than 170,000 square feet, has a 24-foot clear height and an elevated 130-foot court served by two ramps that can accommodate big rigs. Level 3, at more than 180,000 square feet, has a 16-foot clear height and two loading docks supported by three forklift-accessible freight elevators. The floor has been designed for office, manufacturing and light warehousing use, but not for heavy-duty fulfillment.
The Seattle facility may be the first of its kind in America, but it will not be the last. Two multi-story facilities will open in New York City either late this year or in early 2019. One is located in Brooklyn’s Red Hook district, where ground will be broken in the first quarter, according to real estate and logistics services giant JLL Inc., which is managing and leasing space for both projects. The other is near Bruckner Boulevard off I-95 in the borough of The Bronx. That project is slated for groundbreaking in the second quarter.
Others are planned or have been proposed in San Francisco and Los Angeles, though, according to industry sources, plans to build a two-story facility in Los Angeles were scratched because of high costs and a challenging design to support 53-foot trailer moves in the available space. Building a two-story structure can cost $150 per square feet more than the traditional single-level facility because of higher material and construction costs that come with double-decking, according to ballpark estimates from CBRE Services (NYSE:CBRE), which brokers industrial transactions between landlords and tenants.