Cooler warehouse storage shortage in St. Louis, Missouri.

                              1075 McDonough, Collinsville Illinois   28°warehouse storage temperature


Refrigerated food processors in St. Louis, Missouri have been challenged in the latter part of 2014 in finding any refrigerated storage space to accommodate their annual inventory build for the 2014 holiday season.

Certain food processing operations require a certain storage temperature called "high temperature freezer storage" which is a +28° storage temperature. The food product needs to be placed into storage at slightly below freezing which is 32° storage temperatures. Some food products do not freeze at the traditional 32° because of the contents in their ingredients. One example is horseradish which has a high sugar content, and the other is Hams which is high in salt.

However, this high-temperature freezer storage requires an insulated floor to prevent floor heaving from subsurface moisture, however the refrigeration equipment needs to have cooler capabilities. Most refrigerated warehouse floor space in refrigerated buildings requires 0° storage, or 36° storage. The freezer warehouse storage has one type of refrigeration equipment, and the warehouse cooler storage requires all different type of refrigeration equipment design. Therefore finding a refrigerated warehouse building in St. Louis with a floor designed for freezer warehouse usage, combined with refrigeration design for cooler warehouse usage is difficult to find.

 There was only one building available in the St. Louis market in the 2014 holiday storage season that had the desired 28° storage temperatures. This building was located 1075 McDonough Lake Road, Collinsville, Illinois. It was a 10,800 square-foot refrigerated building situated on 2 acres. Information on this 28° storage building is found at http://www.crelisting.net/P8332AD8w

Jim Cronin is a refrigerated building real estate broker from St. Louis at 314-994-0577 or e-mail J.Cronin@hawkds.com

Adding refrigerated warehouse space in a food facilities building.

Adding refrigerated or freezer warehouse space within a food facility building. Refrigerated food processing and refrigerated food distributors need additional cold storage space can convert part of their food facility building into freezer warehouse space. This requires modification of the existing dry warehouse space into freezer warehouse storage space. The modification is necessary because of the moisture in the soil underneath the cement of the dry warehouse floor will freeze, and then expand and eventually begin to raise the floor upwards. Installation of an under floor heating system is an extensive and costly modification to the food facilities building. The concrete from the original warehouse floor has to be completely removed. Then the installation of the in floor heating system is possible. The actual heat can come from an electrical heating system or from forced air ventilation. The electrical heating system is basically electrical heating tape within a specially designed pad. The forced air ventilation is basically PCV pipes that have ambient warehouse air circulated through the piping system. The electrical or forced air systems are underneath the 6 inch urethane insulation that is between the surface of the ground and the cement of the warehouse floor. When the conversion of the food facilities dry warehouse floor space into freezer warehouse floor space requires the installation of three components which are under floor heating system, specially designed urethane flooring insulation and new concrete. This will provide a stable protection from the expansion of subsurface moisture against the bottom of the new warehouse floor.Freezer warehouse services at the building are then at a larger capacity. Hawk Distribution Services LLC www.hawkds.com is a refrigerated building real estate broker familiar with adding freezer warehouse space in food facilities. Jim Cronin, broker 314-994-0577 or j.cronin@hawkds.com

St. Louis cold storage buildings and leasing of their freezer cooler space.

St. Louis cold storage buildings and freezer cooler warehouse space have been available primarily available for lease over the last 12 months. Freezer cooler buildings available for sale in St. Louis have been available in the outer portions of the St. Louis area. Why are cold storage buildings in St. Louis so hard to find?

Refrigerated warehouse space is often referred to as freezer cooler warehouse space. When more freezer or cooler storage is required for pallet storage it seems the best place would be at the company's present location. There is the option that to add additional freezer cooler storage space to the installation of modular insulated panels and in those cases Freon refrigeration condensing units and evaporators. The easiest solution to add cold storage space at current location to avoid entering into a lease for another freezer cooler building if one was available. There also was the cost of transportation and handling of freezer and cooler pallets if they were stored at a second location.

 The expansion of refrigerated warehouse space in an ambient or dry warehouse building through time allowed the percentage of refrigerated floor space to increase. However, whenever there is reduction in the inventory of refrigerated foods requiring cold storage temperatures then freezer cooler space is available for lease and that building.

Hawk Distribution Services, LLC www.hawkds.com has 28 years of experience as refrigerated building real estate brokers. Please contact Jim Cronin at 314-994-0577 or e-mail J.Cronin@hawkds.com to discuss your company's refrigerated building real estate needs.

Refrigerated Warehouse Company and Refrigerated Warehouse Buildings.

Often times there is confusion between what a refrigerated warehousing company and refrigerated warehouse building. For those not familiar with terminology of this niche of industrial real estate, it can often be frustrating because the two are completely different. A refrigerated warehouse building is an industrial warehouse facility that is capable of freezer and cooler warehouse storage temperatures. The product that is being stored requires that it be maintained in a frozen or a refrigerated temperature. Most of frozen and refrigerated products are either refrigerated food or food ingredients to be used in refrigerated foods. Freezer temperatures in refrigerated warehousing buildings are normally -10°F up to a +10°F. Cooler temperatures in a refrigerated building are usually +34° up to +45°. Ice cream storage and ice cream novelties require -15°F to -20°F. warehouse storage temperatures. A refrigerated warehouse building either been purchased or leased by a refrigerated food processor, or a refrigerated food distributor for the warehouse storage of their product. This is a privately or publicly owned company that is holding their refrigerated food products in a building that they own or lease. Simply stated; A private company in their own refrigerated building, selling refrigerated foods that they own to their customers. A refrigerated warehouse company is a business entity. A refrigerated warehouse company is in the business of storing and handling refrigerated food products that are owned by other companies. Refrigerated Warehouse Company is a type of business that is located in a refrigerated warehouse building and is storing frozen or refrigerated foods for other companies. Sometimes these warehouse companies are referred to as public refrigerated warehouse companies. Simply stated; A public refrigerated warehouse company is in the business of storing other companies refrigerated foods on a temporary or long-term basis. Refrigerated warehouse buildings are sold or are leased on a square foot basis. Refrigerated warehouse companies are sold on a multiple of their earnings from operations (Earnings Before Interest Taxes Depreciation Amortization- EBITDA). Typically a refrigerated warehouse company is sold at a higher price than refrigerated warehouse buildings. Therefore it is important to verify whether it was of business sale or a refrigerated real estate transaction when analyzing the value of any refrigerated warehouse building. Hawk Distribution Services LLC has 28 years of experience of leasing and selling refrigerated buildings. Hawk Distribution Services LLC also has experience in selling public refrigerated warehousing companies. Contact Jim Cronin at J.Cronin@hawkds.com or 314-994-0577.

Freezer storage temperature in refrigerated buildings in St. Louis, Missouri.

        

Freezer storage temperatures in refrigerated buildings in St. Louis, Missouri historically have been held at a -10°. Whenever a refrigerated food product or refrigerated ingredient for food products were kept in the freezer warehouse portion of the refrigerated building it was believed that a -10° storage temperature was required to maintain the quality and desirability of the refrigerated food. However there has been a trend in the Metropolitan St. Louis area and also refrigerated buildings in Illinois portion to maintain 0° storage temperatures in the freezer space. This trend began about 5 years ago, about the time of the beginning of the most recent economic downturn. What appears to be is that the owner’s and the operator’s of some of the refrigerated food companies, refrigerated cold storage, and refrigerated food processing companies reviewed all of their operations operating costs in order to maintain profit margins. Electrical usage is a significant operating cost of any refrigerated building. Perhaps over time the freezer storage temperatures were allowed to increase to what has become normally a 0° zero degrees storage temperature within the freezer portion of the refrigerated building.

Certain refrigerated food products require lower freezer storage temperatures. Food products with high sugar content require lower freezer storage temperatures, because the freezing temperature of sugar is lower than 32°, much like salt water requires lower than 32° to freeze solid. Ice cream products therefore require freezer storage temperatures normally at -15°. Also frozen dough bakery products sometimes have certain types of yeast that have exact freezer storage temperature specifications. The temperature specifications have some relation to activating the yeast, with certain types of yeast having different temperature specifications for freezer warehouse storage.

Hawk Distribution Services, LLC www.hawkds.com has 28 years of experience as refrigerated building real estate brokers. Please contact Jim Cronin at 314-994-0577 or e-mail J.Cronin@hawkds.com to discuss your company's refrigerated building real estate needs.





Produce buildings built to support field crop operations.

Produce buildings built to support field crop operations.

Growers of wholesale fruit and vegetable have 2 types of operations,one is having a fruit to harvest orchard or they plant field crops which are always vegitables. Either and orchard or a growing operation will eventually have their fruits and vegetables harvested. Then there is an immediate need to take temperature out of the fruit or vegetable that is just then harvested. Typically when harvesting occurs the produce is somewhere between 60° to 90°F and quickly has to be taken to cooler warehouse temperatures which are usually somewhere between 34 and 36°. Most growing operations have to have their own cooler warehouse building nearby. Typically these are not large refrigerated buildings; perhaps from 4,000 ft.² up to 10,000 ft.², but that is a lot of fruit and vegetables.

The specialized cooler warehouse buildings typically had more horsepower in the refrigeration mechanical systems within the regular cooler warehouse building would normally have. The fruit vegetables have to quickly be chilled, or they will not be desirable for resale, and in some cases may become spoiled and not able to be sold at all. Also these refrigerated buildings have the ability to circulate a lot of air throughout the refrigerated floor space areas to facilitate the rapid cooling of the field or orchard produce.

A typical example of a produce building is located at 1075 McDonough in Collinsville, Illinois 62235. Collinsville is located approximately in the center of the standard Metropolitan St. Louis area in 15 miles from St. Louis's Produce Row This 10,800 ft.² cooler warehouse building was originally built in the 1970s to support the field crop operation of horseradish. Horseradish is a field crop, also known as a root crop. Horseradish has high sugar content and requires a lower storage temperature than most fruit or vegetables. The cooler warehouse building at 1075 McDonough is capable of operating at approximately 28°. Sugar has a lower freezing point than 32°. Whenever a refrigerated warehouse building, like this metropolitan St. Louis, Missouri area that has temperature capabilities of storage in the upper 20s, then they are called a Low Temp Cooler Warehouse Buildings. Because of the upper 20s cooler storage temperatures, there is a need for some type of insulation in the floors in the cooler warehouse area. This Collinsville, Illinois warehouse facility has flooring insulation. Flooring installation basically is very compressed polystyrene are urethane panel that is placed just before the final concrete pour of the warehouse floor.

Hawk Distribution Services, LLC www.hawkds.com has 28 years of experience as refrigerated building real estate brokers. Please contact Jim Cronin at 314-994-0577 or e-mail J.Cronin@hawkds.com to discuss your company's refrigerated building real estate needs.





 

When do refrigerated food processing companies need to lease freezer warehouse space?

A refrigerated food manufacturing or refrigerated food processing plant primarily is involved in making refrigerated or frozen foods that require both non refrigerated and refrigerated ingredients. Most of the products that are made in refrigerated food processing plants typically are directly shipped within a matter of days from their refrigerated building. However, from time to time there is not enough freezer warehouse space or cooler warehouse space in their refrigerated facility to hold all their refrigerated ingredients or the refrigerated or frozen foods. Then these companies will need to lease cooler warehouse space or to lease freezer warehouse space somewhere near their food manufacturing plant.

Whenever refrigeration is required for ingredients or finished products there will be only a limited number of refrigerated buildings in the area that are available for lease. The refrigerated food processing plant will have to also consider the distance from their facility. The further away from the facility the more expensive it will be to transport the product back and forth from the manufacturing facility. The ideal situation would be to lease a freezer warehouse room, within a larger existing freezer warehouse building. This way the owner of the building would already be operating the existing facility which would include operating and maintaining the building’s refrigeration system.

An example would be the freezer warehouse space available for lease at 7235 Vicksburg Pike in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. The 8,000 square-foot refrigerated warehouse space is one room with one single door for entry and exit. The freezer room is completely pallet racked with 1,380 pallet slot positions and capable of -15° storage temperatures. Therefore a food company would need to do is to rent the room and uses the Ft. Wayne, Indiana freezer warehouse space whenever needed.

Hawk Distribution Services, LLC www.hawkds.com has 28 years of experience as refrigerated building real estate brokers. Please contact Jim Cronin at 314-994-0577 or e-mail J.Cronin@hawkds.com to discuss your company's refrigerated building real estate needs.

Secondary Industrial Markets and demand for refrigerated building real estate.

Secondary Industrial Markets and demand for refrigerated building real estate. There always is a limited demand in secondary industrial markets. This demand is simply defined as "distance” from the refrigerated building that is for sale or for lease. The building's demand is “distance” from the building, generally held to be 20 miles in a small industrial market. Whatever business the prospect is involved in, and will use of an industrial freezer warehouse or cooler warehouse areas of building, will then that prospect will always have a customer base that supports the refrigerated food distribution or refrigerated food processing business of the refrigerated buildings prospect. Every industrial building's customer base has a tolerance on how many miles they will drive to consume/purchase any certain goods or services. There sometimes is some variance from that "20 mile" figure according to what type of refrigerated goods or refrigerated services that will be purchased. The more frequent the consumption/purchase the less the mileage tolerance will be of the refrigerated building prospect’s customer base. Most typically the prospective purchaser or lessee for industrial building in these smaller industrial markets will have outgrown their freezer and cooler facility. Sometimes the purchaser may have been in several different facilities and will need to consolidate their operations for one of two reasons. The first reason is that a rental property was no longer available to the prospect to occupy, for such reasons as the end of the lease term or eminent domain. The second reason is that consolidation of operations into one single location will now result in lower operating costs for the prospect’s business operations. Usually most of these businesses are owned by individuals that have a desire to purchase a refrigerated building for sale, rather than lease a refrigerated building, so as to be able to build equity in the industrial freezer or cooler building and therefore increase their own personal net worth. Any prospective purchaser of a refrigerated building will look at the new building replacement cost [new construction] when considering buying a used refrigerated food processing or refrigerated distribution building. When analyzing of new construction, there is usually not any recent refrigerated building sales comparables in the secondary industrial market. When marketing industrial real estate in a secondary industrial market it is always important to remember that the highest likelihood that the best prospects for the sale or lease of the refrigerated facility will be from within a 20 mile radius of that refrigerated building for sale. As the real estate broker saying always goes, "sell it to the neighbor". Hawk Distribution Services, LLC has 26 years of experience as refrigerated building real estate brokers. Please contact Jim Cronin at 314-994-0577 or e-mail J.Cronin@hawkds.com to discuss your company's refrigerated building real estate needs. To view Hawk Distribution Services, LLC’ refrigerated buildings available for sale or refrigerated warehouse space for lease in St. Louis, Missouri and also in Kansas City, Missouri and the Midwest connect to www.hawkds.com