If the pandemic disruptions of the past two years have highlighted anything about supply chain issues, it’s the crucial importance of adaptability.
This necessity is important not only in areas like securing more than one source for component parts for manufacturers; it’s also important in the design of the logistics facilities that companies rely on to get their components or to get their products to market.
The relatively simple-sounding requirements for a logistics warehouse — four walls, a roof, loading docks and ample space to store and sort freight — require careful planning, according to architectural designer Homer Nestlen with McMillan Pazdan Smith’s Spartanburg office.
Designing structures that can accommodate a range of possible needs is crucial to logistics projects, Nestlen says, especially as many projects the firm has handled in the past year have been speculative in nature and not designed for a specific client.
Given the diverse nature of Upstate industry and the network of transportation infrastructure that logistics facilities take advantage of, it’s not surprising to see the development of so many warehouse and distribution projects, according to John Montgomery, managing director with Colliers International’s Spartanburg office.
With more than 20 million square feet of speculative storage and logistics space under development across the area, projects have to be able to meet a variety of needs, Montgomery says.
The List: 15 largest Upstate logistics providers
“That’s what’s so critical about design,” he says. “Design has evolved as needs have evolved.”
Warehouse structures typically range from 100,000 to 500,000 square feet — sometimes even going as large as 1 million to 1.5 million square feet. But once those buildings get filled with products and the workers and machines needed to move them, they become vital links in the supply chain.
“That space during operation hours is in constant motion,” Nestlen says. “There’s pallets being set down, moved back and forth… and so it is a very fluid type of process.”
From a design perspective, logistics buildings are necessarily open floor plans generally based on a 50-foot by 50-56-foot bay spacing grid pattern for support columns, Nestlen says. Beyond the open space required to store and move materials, such projects also must incorporate other key features, like loading docks for trucks to load and unload products, and air-handling and climate systems to keep buildings reasonably comfortable and air quality safe.
Nestlen says other design elements are aimed at maximizing the efficiency of traffic in and out of the facility and security features that help monitor access. He adds many speculative logistics projects are also designed to be modular in that they can be subdivided to provide several flexible tenant spaces within one overall structure.
“These buildings aren’t like they were 20 years ago,” he says.
