How do I learn more about industrial real estate development?

January 1, 2022 4:23 PM

There are a couple interesting large-scale industrial redevelopment projects happening near me, and I'd like to learn more about how that field works to see if it might be something I could or would want to transition into.

To be a little more specific : In each case a company has bought a large industrial site and plans to dramatically transform them. I realize these are driven by the finances, but I'm specifically interested in how the sites are selected, opportunities for new uses identified, and then ultimately planned and built.

posted by sepviva to Work & Money (3 answers total)

Best answer: I design and plan aspects of industrial sites (single and multiple title, existing, bare-land and brownfield), and meet with owners, investors and realtors along the way. The field seems to be changing fast even in my country, so probably faster where you. There also appear to be whole new areas of activity as climate response gears up, e.g. intermodal freight hubs, where they all appear to be at least 10m ^ sea level. I think (I don't know) that a lot of current change is being insurance-driven.

If the end use is multiple title/ownership they are legally complicated.

A lot of what I know is drawn from other areas of land development and design and real estate, I have never found much info directly on industrial redevelopment (I think it's because they are complicated entities in their own right). I can put up some links to articles if that'd be useful.
posted by unearthed at 6:29 PM on January 1, 2022

Response by poster: Unearthed, thank you and I would love any article links
posted by sepviva at 4:42 PM on January 2, 2022

Just some context so you can weight what I send as my needs will differ a lot from yours, but are adjacent.

Industrial landscapes are a fascination as it was much of my training as well as my ° major), to the point where if I travel you'll find me wandering around industrial zones in Los Angeles, London, Melbourne... Apart from pure landscape I'm also into Industrial Ecology (waste loop closing. I'm not wonderful with money but knowing the language of development finance (especially for holistic solutions, live-work-play and higher return developments) has proven invaluable - Industrial Ecology is complex both legally and financially, I'm hoping it's a growth area but local government afraid of it as it's holistic.

Helpful articles, papers, books along the way include:

Bill Dunster Architects / ZEDfactory - zero carbon developer - global focus, the founder had to learn the language of finance to a deep level as no bank would lend on innovative schemes. Bill started his own house and scaled up.

^ a good search: bedzed "bill dunster" finance lending

they have a recent book ZEDlife I didn't know of.

Anything by Christopher Leinberger (I don't agree with his planning ethos, but he's right on the money re higher investment upfront = longer higher returns) - mainly commercial/subdivision/mixed-use but the same core knowledge.
Leading the Money by James S Russell in the June 2003 issue of Architectural Record was my first real eye-opener and intro to Leinberger's work, article mainly about Albuquerque. I've been reading forward from this for a long time.

The Shorefast Foundation in PEI is not industrial per se but about remote area redevelopment and worth reading about.

'Road-rail intermodal freight transport' appears to be an industrial land development growth area, they're popping up all over the place, often co-located with processing facilities, this is a good way in:
Road-rail intermodal freight transport as a strategy for climate change mitigation, in Environmental Development, 2017. I found out about these hubs from reading insurance industry journals and searching on port insurance.
posted by unearthed at 1:18 AM on January 3, 2022 [1 favorite]