Industrial real estate giant Panattoni Europe has announced investments worth 1.2 billion euros in city logistics projects – facilities built within city limits dedicated to the so-called last mile. Panattoni will make the investments over the next three years in a number of markets, including Poland, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic.
Panattoni’s latest move follows the developer’s success in building state-of-the-art distribution hubs, and marks a move towards smaller facilities located on the outskirts of cities – city logistics parks. The developer currently has four such last mile parks under development in Poland, the investment in which totals 65 million euros, and the most recent development – City Logistics Warsaw, which comprises 26,000 sq m – has already secured its first tenant, online retailer Frisco.pl. The remaining city logistics parks in Poland – City Logistics Wrocław I, Łódź I and Warsaw Airport remain under development with an occupancy rate currently in the range of 60 per cent.
Chief Executive Officer Europe of Panattoni, Robert Dobrzycki, said that by the end of this year, his company would have delivered around 150,000 sq m in city logistics parks, in Poland, and that expansion would follow.
“We are planning to expand our portfolio to include in-city facilities in Germany, the UK and the Czech Republic in early 2019,” he said. “We will be allocating 400 million every year to these projects, totalling 1.2 billion euros over the next three years.”
Panattoni executives believe that the presence of Frisco.pl, Warsaw’s leading online supermarket, at City Logistics Warsaw proves the merit of the developer’s carefully implemented strategy, which caters to the needs of the increasing number of e-commerce retailers across Europe.
Grzegorz Bielecki, a member of the management board at Frisco.pl appeared to confirm this belief. “Our decision to go ahead with the investment was influenced primarily by the dynamic growth in the scale of our business over the past few years, as well as the enormous growth potential of the entire e-grocery market in Poland,” he said. “Already, one in seven Polish internet users regularly buys groceries online, and according to projections the market is set to grow at 15-20 per cent a year. Forward-looking activities and innovation are intended to enable us to consistently expand the scale of our business, and so our new warehouse will employ the latest industry and logistics solutions.”
Panattoni Europe specialises in delivering advanced facilities dedicated to businesses, not least those involved in e-commerce. Its formats include both custom-tailored big boxes, featuring in excess of 161,000 sq m with advanced robotics and automation solutions, and warehouse space adapted to e-commerce logistics processes within proprietary parks. It views the city logistics park concept as a natural and necessary step bringing the industrial space market closer to the expectations of clients and their consumers.
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