Prologis to Develop 3 Buildings in UK

By Gabriel Circiog, Associate Editor

Prologis Park Dunstable, U.K.

San Francisco-based Prologis Inc. recently announced it will begin development on three buildings with a total of 700,000 square feet in the United Kingdom. The company that owns, operates and develops industrial real estate has signed a build-to-suit agreement with the specialist logistics subsidiary of LG Electronics, Hi Logistics, for a 165,000-square foot facility. Prologis will also develop two speculative facilities totaling 535,000 square feet.

The build-to-suit facility, which will be built for Hi Logistics, will be situated in the Prologis Park Ryton, a 64-acre logistics park in the West Midlands, the U.K.’s primary distribution hub. Hi Logistics, which also occupies Prologis facilities in The Netherlands and Poland, will use the new facility as a regional distribution center for its customers throughout the country.

The second Prologis development will be a 225,000-square-foot speculative facility, which will also be located at Prologis Park Ryton. The third development will be a 310,000-square-foot development, located at Prologis Park Dunstable. Within two miles from U.K.’s primary north-south transit corridor, the 32-acre park also offers the advantage of having direct access to London Luton Airport.

“With our U.K. portfolio over 97 percent leased, demand for well-situated, Class-A logistics facilities remains strong,” said Gary Anderson, CEO, Prologis Europe & Asia. “We are pleased to strengthen our established relationship with Hi Logistics and look forward to expanding our footprint and fulfilling space requirements at two of our key parks.”

The three properties have all been designed to achieve BREEAM 2011 “very good” accreditation and the highest possible EPC rating for their size.

The company has been quite active in recent months in Europe. In early June, Alex Girda reported for Multi-Housing News that Prologis’ European branch in a joint venture with Norges Bank Investment Management acquired a portfolio featuring 11 industrial properties for a fee of around $380 million from LondonMetric Property Plc. Later in June, Commercial Property Executive reported about Prologis expanding its presence in Poland by beginning construction on a 376,000-square-foot, build-to-suit distribution center for a leading Polish retailer.

Prologis has become one of the leading providers of industrial real estate in the United Kingdom and as of June 30, its portfolio features approximately 17 million square feet of logistics and distribution space.