Industrial leases often contain many business points which can greatly improve a company’s occupancy if negotiated effectively. In this post I suggest 10 ways companies can improve their next industrial lease to save money and time.

Site selection involves evaluating on-site and off-site factors of properties under consideration. This post discusses four key concepts in site selection, common on-site and off-site factors for distribution, and common on-site and off-site factors for manufacturing uses.

Navigating Industrial Land Use through an Increasingly Difficult and Complex Entitlement Environment

With such a lack of available and vacant space to choose from, companies should pay particular attention to how they are negotiating possession and lease commencement in new lease agreements and how they are communicating with their current landlord if there is a possibility of holdover.

7 key points to help verify the electrical supply of an available industrial building will meet an operations requirements

Important information should always be verified, even if from reliable sources. Companies must prioritize the information they verify in industrial real estate projects.

The blend and extend lease renewal can be an advantageous transaction for both the Landlord and Tenant in markets favorable to the landlord or tenant. In either case, it is important for each party to quantify the positive and negative aspects of a proposed blend and extend transaction, especially its financial impact to each respective organization.

Navigating Industrial Land Use through an Increasingly Difficult and Complex Entitlement Environment

One of the main areas I recommend industrial occupiers pay close attention to in lease negotiations are the responsibilities of who maintains, repairs, and replaces building systems and components under a lease.

The dimensions of a building can determine if a distribution operation is moving goods profitably, a manufacturing operation produces product efficiently, and a warehouse operation stores product effectively. For these reasons, supply chain real estate practitioners should be aware of how their company or client's operation translates into an ideal building layout for any new real estate search or re-design of current facilities.

In this post I cover the basics of cold storage from someone who represents companies looking for cold storage. I review the cold storage features most commonly of interest to cold storage users and property owners when they evaluate cold storage facilities.

On June 22nd the Journal of Commerce (JOC) published an article titled "Long-awaited US inventory drawdown spotted" where they state in the first sentence, "Lower US inventories would be a boon from coastal ports to heartland highways". The notable exception to such a boon, as they cite in the next paragraph of the article, is in warehousing demand. If US inventories are reduced we would expect warehouse demand to be reduced as well. However, economic indicators do not support such a drawdown at this time.

Advancements in technology are disrupting the function and design of industrial real estate. Since these advancements are believed to be exponential, perhaps to an extent, the industrial real estate of tomorrow promises to be very different than today. Technologies such as autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, robotics, and the internet of things (IoT) exist and will disrupt industrial real estate and supply chain. However, with exponential advancements in technology disruption the future of industrial real estate is very likely to be disrupted by new technological silos which do not exist today.

Lighting is a critical component of today's supply chain real estate. The use of light, whether artificial or natural, affects the costs, labor, compliance and environmental elements of an industrial operation. Therefore, facility decision makers and designers should have a keen awareness of how light is employed in their facilities.

We found that the bay and column spacing within a warehouse can have a significant impact on key performance indicators (KPIs) for warehouse occupiers in ways that are not always obvious. In this post I discuss bays and column spacing in a warehouse and why they are important for supply chain real estate participants to consider when a) designing a new warehouse location and/or b) perhaps re-designing an existing warehouse.

…fire sprinkler systems have evolved from little more than a perforated pipe to a highly technical engineered system capable of extinguishing the most combustible materials capable of being stored. Since fire codes and fire systems require professional interpretation and expertise, it is imperative that supply chain companies work with experts to mitigate any risk to their desired storage plans.

Assuming the acre is functional in shape, meaning closer to a square than a bowling alley, estimates typically range from 34-40 trailers per acre with no truck cab.

The second point to make is that as the land increases in size, the number of trailers that can typically be stored per acre goes up. For example, my team is marketing an 8 acre land parcel and a space engineering firm created a layout with 394 trailer parking spots for a total of 49 trailers per acre, with 23 trailers spots double stacked.

Flat truck yards may not be high on the occupiers wish list for their new industrial space, but its inclusion may save them time and money over their occupancy.  Flat truck yards are actually truck yards without the typical gradual slope towards the building's loading docks.  Instead, the truck yards are sloped away from the building.

Since the requirements have been public for a few years, the sheer volume of articles is a good indicator that actors within the supply chain are concerned about the new regulation going into effect, assuming the publishers are accurately gauging their audience. SOLAS' verified weight requirements and its potential impact on the supply chain speaks to the challenges continually presented to the supply chain industry.

Recent studies have indicated that U.S. corporations are planning on investing capital to improve efficiency in their home countries and services to their current customers 2.In employing such investments, industrial firms should strongly consider the role of its real estate site selection and improved performance.