Logistically speaking

The latest report issued by agents King Sturge on the Warsaw warehouse market states that logistics companies and international consortia occupy two thirds of warehouse space in Poland. According to specialist warehousing magazine Eurologistics, the main tenants of modern warehouses in Poland are logistics companies. Do warehouses occupied by logistics companies differ from other warehouses?

Logistics space
FM Logistic has been operating in Poland since 1994. A year after it started the company built a warehouse in Mszczonów, c. 45 km from Warsaw on the Katowice route. With 60,000 sqm this was the biggest high storage warehouse in Poland. The warehouse halls can be adapted to suit tenants requirements who include Procter & Gamble, Mars, Kodak, Auchan and Carrefour. An interesting point about this project is that a specialised arm of FM Logistic developed it. "We knew the requirements which had to be met. The cost of a warehouse used by a logistics company does not vary from the cost of a warehouse built for an end user. The technologies are identical, the only difference is that a hall catering to a logistics user must be flexible so that its interior can be modified without difficulty," says Wojciech Gąsiorowski, sales director at FM Logistic.

Other schemes
Adjacent to FM Logistic's project is Europa Distribution Center's (EDC) Europa Park. Tenants at this development, located on a 133 hectare site, include Maersk who have a 22,000 sqm facility (which they plan to increase to 40,000 sqm) and Fiege Goth, who have 16,000 sqm of space (which they are also planning to enlarge to 40,000 sqm). Both these companies have owned the land on which their warehouses are built since 1999. Maersk built its own facility while Fiege Goth's investment was overseen by EDC.
"Warehouses to be utilised by logistics firms must have flexible designs so they can be divided into partitions as well as have various types of racks and equipment installed and new amenities added. The fulfilment of these criteria makes these facilities more expensive to build than for an end user," explains Paweł Piasecki of EDC. "From the point of view of warehouse management it is more convenient for end users to own their facilities."

Similar standards
Several logistics companies lease space at ProLogis' warehouse complexes. Tenants at ProLogis Park Teresin include logistics companies Distriland and Danzas; tenants at ProLogis Park Błonie include Bruhn Transport and Polta. These companies took space in these facilities after they were built and had no influence on their design. "I disagree with the opinion that warehouses built for logistics companies should be different from warehouses built for end users. Either type of tenant can use each any facility. Logistics companies need a greater number of gates, but end users don't have to use them," says Maciej Madejak of ProLogis.
At TKG International's complexes, Ożarów Business Center and Warsaw Distribution Center, logistics companies, Lognet in Ożarów and Prolog in Warsaw took smaller areas of c. 2,000 sqm each. Both companies took space when the facilities were already complete and had no say in the design.