City Flex: Warehouses Tailored to Cities

The warehouse market shows no signs of slowing down. Unlike the retail or office sectors, warehouse and logistics properties continue to attract significant interest from both tenants and investors, despite the turmoil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The main driver of the sector is the growing activity of e-commerce companies, for whom an urban location remains crucial.

Not just e-commerce 

However, the tenant mix for warehouse facilities located in urban centers is much more complex. There remains a group of tenants for whom other factors determine the attractiveness of these locations. Among them are companies that —unlike tenants focused on urban logistics — prioritize ensuring that customers can reach them as quickly as possible. There are also companies for which it is important to provide their employees with adequate access via public transportation.

“A very good example of this is our project on Osmańska Street in Warsaw, which—on the one hand—is located near the airport, and on the other—is adjacent to an office complex, so it’s perfectly connected to the rest of the city, making it easy for employees to commute to work. Equally important can be quick access to an expressway or a highway,” says Paulina Kozłowska.

– When 7R launched the City Flex warehouse initiative, we expected that the tenants would mainly be logistics and distribution companies. But both our project on Osmańska Street and the one on Działkowa Street partially contradict that assumption. Today, the tenants there are mainly clients with very high requirements regarding warehouse equipment. I would definitely call these projects small-scale BTS developments within the urban agglomeration,” explains the 7R expert.

Location, location, and location 

City Flex locations require careful planning right from the project development stage. In addition to carefully selecting the site, it is also essential to conduct a thorough analysis of the surrounding area and potential customers.

“This stage is essential for justifying the development of a warehouse project in an urban center.Just as with a BTS (Built-to-Suit) project, where we work with the client to select the right location, we also carefully evaluate the location for City Flex so that we can later match the project with the right tenant,” adds Paulina Kozłowska.

City Flex is going green 

Year after year, tenants of warehouses located in metropolitan areas are becoming increasingly demanding. The range of solutions designed to improve operational and environmental efficiency that are being implemented in such projects demonstrates that customer awareness is growing.

– Customers don’t just ask about innovations; they actually expect developers to provide them.That’s why at 7R, in addition to standard market solutions, we implement many others—such as destratifiers, which allow us to use the warm air that accumulates at the highest levels of the hall to heat the entire facility. Additionally, which is not yet standard on the Polish market, we use PIR technology in the insulation of our buildings, which ensures a lower thermal transmittance coefficient compared to mineral wool, currently used on a massive scale,” emphasizes Paulina Kozłowska.

7R implements many more solutions of this type and, as a Polish developer, strives to set new trends in this area.“It is now standard practice at 7R for all our new buildings to be equipped with LED lighting supplemented by the DALI protocol. Additionally, each of our new developments features a photovoltaic system and a charging station for electric cars,” says the 7R expert.