Rapid expansion in the popularity of online grocery and pharmaceutical sales coupled with changing requirements for product safety over the past several years have drastically impacted demand for well-located, temperature-controlled storage facilities. Many industries have experienced a shortage of multi-temperaturecontrolled warehouse facilities when, and where, they need them. The current COVID-19 crisis has only amplified this shortage as demand has skyrocketed amid widespread “stay-at-home” online ordering and panic buying. This has left grocers, as well as pharmaceutical and biomedical producers and distributors, scrambling to balance product safety with customer service level requirements across their businesses.
As economic and business uncertainty looms, it has become evident that this demand will continue to increase, especially when the fastest-growing industries such as e-grocery, meal kit distribution and e-pharmacy seem to be the ones that need multi-temperature cold storage facilities. Will the current pace of growth in this sector fundamentally alter the industrial and logistics real estate asset class make-up? Could multi-temperature cold storage facilities emerge as a new, completely distinct, asset class separated from its “parent” industrial and logistics category on the other side of the pandemic?