The great-grandfather of industrial real estate, a warehouse is the seed from where all other types of industrial real estate grow, including flex space, manufacturing, distribution, truck terminals, medical and lab, research and development, high tech and data center. Originally, a larger-than-life building, warehouses were built for long-long-long-term storage of raw goods and materials in need by mining companies and builders of railroads and settlements, including ranchers, farmers and homesteaders, present day homeowners.
Whether grain, lumber, coal or iron, people needed raw goods to build their settlements, sell or manufacture something that could be useful to the next settlement, where that something could be a trade or a promise to pay, gold, and later, currency. It was the beginning of the combined, present-day manufacturing, shipping and receiving, and logistics boom, long before warehouse innovation occurred, leading to the creation of: flex space, manufacturing, distribution, data center, research and development and truck terminals industrial real estate.
How does one turn a Settlement into a Town, into a City, and into a Nation? Through the building of railroad transportation, its hubs, and warehouses. The result being, the building of towns, sparking an economic engine, that starts the creation of jobs, that, then, feeds back into an endless loop of get, give and growth, creating a Nation. Imagine, 1500 miles away, by railroad transportation, is available: the iron needed to manufacture the cast-iron pots and pans to cook, the spikes for installing the rail road ties, the grain required to feed livestock and to manufacture cooking oils, and fuels.
Much like today’s world, the great-grandfather warehouse of industrial real estate lives, but delivers faster, with sizes ranging from small to large to extremely large, and comes in a variety of uses, names and flavors. From manufacturing to distribution warehouse properties to upgraded flex space, to high tech and data center, to research and development, the options are limitless.
Today’s warehouse may be leased by a company, or purchased because of a selling opportunity for use in: manufacturing, distribution, cold storage, or as truck terminals industrial real estate or for the logistics and import and export industries. Upgraded warehouses include medical and lab facilities, including research and development, biotech, high tech and data center.
From one, comes many. From the warehouse, comes the flex space, comes the data center, and so on. All built with steel and concrete and built to last, because they still house the goods, whether intellectual, raw or manufactured, needed to keep an economy thriving, by creating jobs, and business, resulting in the supporting of lives, the building of families and allowing growth within local communities. And, so the economy keeps getting, giving, and growing. Here’s to the great-grandfather that makes life grand, the warehouse. And, with the grandfather of industrial real estate, flex space, the economy thrives.
