News
WHERE-HOUSES
March 30, 2011
 | |
| Gas prices and online shopping are two different factors changing where businesses want to locate their distribution centers, and that may be a win for Chicago-area industrial, Cushman & Wakefield'sJohn Morris tells us. Chicago boasts both large and small warehouses in urban and suburban locations. The rise in gas prices has encouraged retailers to lease more distribution centers, with each one smaller on average and closer to the people they're serving. So having one 1.5M SF warehouse is now out of vogue—companies would rather have two 800k SF warehouses, for example. As fuel costs are on the rise, the use of multi-modal transportation also increases, giving Chicago an advantage because of its manyintermodals and intersecting railways. | |
 | |
| Online shopping is also on the rise, accounting for about 4.3% of all purchases. (If you thought that stat was interesting, Amazon.com recommends you buy 43% and 430%.) One department store has opened four warehouses in three months to accommodate its online traffic, John says. Because all of the shipments from an online shopping warehouses are going to different places via parcel shipping, the cost of transportation becomes less important. On the other hand, shipments are also much smaller, and picking those items (labor) becomes more important. So far, western suburban Chicago's labor pool has drawn in some new companies. Many retailers like Target are now doing labor force studies before locating facilities (Target's latest is in Tucson). John predicts the more remote parts of the Chicago area should do well in these studies |
