Dive Brief:
- FedEx's GENCO has opened two multi-tenant healthcare warehouses meant to ease supply chain delays and complexities for medium and small manufacturers, according to a recent press release.
- The facilities are located near FedEx hubs in Memphis, TN, and Milton, Ontario. The Memphis site is over a million square feet while the Milton facility measures 400,000 square feet.
- GENCO touts rapid scalability and flexible cost structures among the benefits in multi-tenant facilities. In addition to sharing floor space, manufacturers also have access to state-of-the art technology, generally reserved for large clients.
Dive Insight:
The needs of the healthcare industry differ from various other industries in the need for temperature controlled storage facilities and often, smaller scale or space needs. As a result, it is often difficult to find storage spaces that meet the industry's needs in a cost-efficient manner.
Enter multi-tenant warehouses, which seek to lease out fractions of a facility to smaller tenants for shared operational costs. Multi-tenant warehouses have been on the rise recently: A recent Cushman & Wakefield report finds the model accounts for 40% of all U.S. warehouses.
E-commerce, in particular, has made such warehouses more attractive given the need for more and leaner spaces across the country. The warehouses, however, are typically smaller than 200,000 feet.
Genco is betting on the big box warehouses' healthcare specialization to drive numerous tenants through reduced initial costs. The cold chain capabilities may also prove useful for other pharmaceutical or food producers, but the press release made it clear the company seeks to make the development most accessible to healthcare suppliers through shared technology.
