Refrigerated warehouse space lease transaction – St. Louis County, Missouri.

                                                                                         

Baily International, Inc. leased 46,000 ft.² of refrigerated warehouse space at 498 Bussen Underground Drive, St. Louis, Missouri 63129 from the Bussen Underground Warehouse. The refrigerated warehouse space located in St. Louis County, Missouri has 23,000 square feet of freezer warehouse space, and 10,800 square feet of cooler warehouse space, and 3000 square feet of USDA inspected refrigerated processing space. This freezer cooler warehouse has 6 truck dock doors. The Bussen Underground Warehouse originally constructed the freezer cooler space in 1997 for Kuna Foodservice. The Bussen Underground Warehouse is an underground industrial warehouse complex specializing in temperature controlled warehouse space for lease.



Jim Cronin is a refrigerated building real estate broker in St. Louis, Missouri. Phone 314-994-0577 e-mail J.Cronin@hawkds.com or www.refrigerated-buildings.com or www.hawkds.com

Underground Warehouse Space conversions.

The greater Metropolitan St. Louis, Missouri has a number of underground warehouse developments. These developments typically are occupied by a refrigerated warehousing company that provides freezer warehouse services. Freezer warehouse services are where a pallet of refrigerated or frozen food products is stored on a month-to-month basis, with the handling provided by the refrigerated warehouse company for the other company.

However, underground warehouse for lease can be converted into refrigerated food processing space for lease. The major advantages are a lower than normal build out costs which results in a lower rental rate for food processing areas, either being refrigerated or ambient temperature food production space. Sometimes the rental rate is up to 50% less than the lease rate for above ground facilities. The operating costs associated with occupying food processing space in an underground warehouse facility are also substantially lower because of the insulation value of rock. Above ground facilities have 4 inches of urethane panel installation in its refrigerated processing areas, and underground facilities may have up to 100 feet of rock to provide its insulating values.

 The occupancy costs are lower in underground warehouse space is because of a lower property tax rate. Property taxes are initially based on construction costs of the building, and then in subsequent property tax assessment periods on the market value of the property. Underground warehouse space is more affordable to construct than above ground warehouse space, thus always maintaining a lower property tax structure.

The underground warehouse development has to have the utility inner structure in place for the conversion of warehouse space into food processing space for lease.

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

Freezer Warehouse building floor heaving problems.

                                             Freezer Warehouse building floor heaving problems.

A freezer warehouse building floor this constructed to keep the moisture in the soil below the floor from freezing. Whenever water freezes it expands. When the large amount of soil beneath a freezer floor is frozen the cumulative effect of the moisture in the soil freezing exerts pressure on the floor from underneath. When that happens the freezer warehouse floor will begin to rise upward, and the more moisture there is in the soil, then the greater the expansion and the higher the floor will raise upward. As the freezer floor rises, cement begins to crack.

One of the reasons that freezer warehouse floor will heave is within the construction of the freezer warehouse building’s floor is a component called a moisture barrier. A moisture barrier is basically a large industrial plastic tarp that is laid down over the sand and gravel base. This moisture barrier keeps water from seeping into the cement. Any type of cement will absorb some water. This plastic tarp referred to as a "moisture barrier" in the refrigerated warehouse building construction trade keeps subsoil surface moisture away from the cement.

For a variety of reasons the moisture barrier sometimes fail allowing additional moisture to move upward towards the already frozen cement of the freezer floor, eventually the moisture will freeze and turn into ice and push upwards. Most moisture barriers fail from improper installation when the original freezer warehouse floor was poured. Almost always only a small portion of the freezer warehouse floor is affected, because only a portion of the moisture barrier has been penetrated by subsurface moisture. Signs that a freezer warehouse floor has failed moisture barrier are very subtle at first. Eventually as the floor raises and a dome shaped in the floor will become evident with cracks radiating outward. As pictured at the beginning of this article about freezer warehouse floors.

Jim Cronin is a refrigerated building real estate broker in St. Louis, Missouri.

Phone 314-994-0577 e-mail J.Cronin@hawkds.com or www.refrigerated-buildings.com

A refrigerated warehouse building transaction in St. Louis, Missouri

Lease Transaction Announcement.

John Morrell Food Group leased 7,000 ft.² of refrigerated warehouse space from Sunfarm Food Service, Inc at 84 Produce Row, St. Louis Missouri 6310. Hawk Distribution Services LLC represented both parties in the transaction. Jim Cronin specializes in refrigerated building real estate brokerage.

John Morrell Food Group’s package meat division of Armour-Eckrich Meats was in need of refrigerated warehouse space with cooler storage temperatures and refrigerated dock space to accommodate their route delivery trucks. The 84 Produce Row facility was formerly occupied by Sunfarm Food Service, Inc. which recently located to a larger facility leaving the refrigerated food facility available for lease. The 7000 ft.² of food facility has refrigerated and multiple refrigerated rooms, dry warehouse space and a mezzanine office area for support personnel. The refrigerated dock has 4 truck dock doors and ample parking for the Armour Eckrich Meats’ fleet of refrigerated route trucks.

84 Produce Row is located in the St. Louis Produce Market. Most major metropolitan areas have produce market areas. Most metro produce markets are cooperatives which provide administrative support for common area maintenance, sanitation, building maintenance, security and other amenities to their members. These things are attractive to small and medium sized foodservice distributors, which allow the managers to focus on their business operations.

Jim Cronin is a refrigerated building real estate broker in St. Louis, Missouri Phone of 314-994-0577
 e-mail J.Cronin@hawkds.com  or website of   www.refrigerated-buildings.com

Refrigerated building- Analysis of St. Louis, Missouri building sale and building lease transactions.

An outline that applies in analyzing refrigerated building real estate sales.

This outline pertains only to potential prospect or customer base that are in need of refrigerated warehouse buildings. Refrigerated buildings are any industrial property that has more than 15% of the building's floor space capable of +42° to -10° warehouse storage temperature capabilities. Generally, of all refrigerated buildings 75% have freezer storage capabilities, and 25% of refrigerated buildings have cooler storage capabilities. Therefore the 75% of all prospects would need freezer warehouse storage capabilities and other 25% would need cooler warehouse space the prospect needs additional capacity. Transaction history on refrigerated building shows that 7 out of 10 real estate transactions are for leasing refrigerated space, and 3 are sale transactions. Probably the reason for so many lease transactions is that a company needs additional space for some interim period. In all industrial real estate transactions, 80 to 85% of sale or lease transactions are with local companies which are purchasing or leasing local building. The remaining 15 to 20% are regional or national companies that need a presence in that local market therefore they need to purchase or lease a local building. An example if the cooler warehouse building was for sale in St. Louis then the prospect base would be 25% of the St. Louis refrigerated market, and then if the building would be only for sale would leave 30% of those prospects which are "Ready, Willing and Able" to purchase a cooler building in the St. Louis market being a viable candidate for the St. Louis refrigerated building. Jim Cronin is a refrigerated building real estate broker from St. Louis, Missouri at 314-994-0577 or e-mail J.Cronin@hawkds.com       www.hawkds.com

Sale of a Bakery Building in St. Louis County, Missouri.

Sale of a Bakery Building in St. Louis County, Missouri. A food production building used for commercial making operations was sold on July 2, 2013. The 42,075 ft.² industrial building had a food production area and refrigerated warehouse space with cooler temperatures. There also was a freezer warehouse storage area. The food production facility had 2,720 ft.² of office space with an employee welfare area to accommodate employees in the commercial production of bread and pastry products. The building was located at 9769 Reavis Park , St. Louis County, Missouri 63123.The refrigerated food production facility was constructed in 1970 and situated on 2.59 acres. The freezer warehouse space addition was added in approximately 1990. The facility was listed by a real estate brokerage company in early 2012. The food production facility property was purchased by the Affton school district in July, 2012. The listed rate at the time the sale was $995,000 .The school district's intention in purchasing the refrigerated building was to use it as an annex to support the nearby high school. High School no longer had any more space to expand onto their existing building. It is not usual for the sale of refrigerated or food production buildings with freezer warehouse space or cooler to be sold to a user that does not require refrigeration capacities. The non refrigerated purchaser simply needed an industrial building located near their primary business operation for additional production capacity or additional warehouse space. Jim Cronin is a refrigerated building real estate broker from St. Louis at 314-994-0577 or e-mail J.Cronin@hawkds.com Jim was not involved in this real estate transaction.