The Prologis group, the largest real estate company in the world specializing in the logistics sector, is going to increase the area of its warehouses for “last mile” logistics, for the delivery of e-commerce orders, by more than 100,000 m² in Catalonia.
Cristian Oller, Vice President and Director for Spain of Prologis, explained that the group is going to invest 12 million euros in the transformation of an old industrial warehouse in Sant Boi de Llobregat, which was owned by Porcelanosa, with which it will incorporate 7,000 m². The new warehouse, very close to the urban fabric, will specialize in loading delivery vans and will complement its flagship warehouse in Catalonia, the Prologis Park Sant Boi, a complex of six logistics warehouses with a surface area of 122,000 m2.
The group will also incorporate eight additional warehouses specialized in capillary logistics in Catalonia from the purchase of Crossbay: an operation in which the American multinational acquired the assets of this group throughout Europe, more than one million square meters of warehouses in the main European capitals, with an investment of 1,585 million euros. Spain has accounted for 16% of these assets, with almost half of them in towns in the Barcelona area: El Prat de Llobregat, Montcada i Reixac, Barberà del Vallès, l'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Sant Andreu de la Barca and Santa Perpètua of Mogoda. In Spain, the Crossbay operation provides the group with seven warehouses in Madrid and Valencia, three in Seville and one in Vigo.
“We had specialized in large ships, and the ones we buy now are small and will become our urban platforms”, explained Oller.
Prologis, he explained, is preparing for additional growth in electronic commerce "which has a long way to go in Spain to reach European levels." The firm's activity, he explained, has not been affected by the economic problems of recent months, and he predicted that rents will remain in Barcelona, "where there are no warehouses and the unemployment rate is 2.3%", while they could correct a little in Madrid, where "it is 6.5% and could increase a little towards the end of the year".
The rise in interest rates, however, will influence the new developments. “With higher costs –and also of construction–, if the rents do not rise, the price of the land would have to be adjusted”, he acknowledged. The difficult fit of these factors will mean that the group does not promote new ships "at risk" in the coming months, but rather at the request of the operators.
