South Florida’s First Spec Cold Storage Facility Lands Tenant

Bridge Industrial has yet to complete Bridge Point Cold Logistics Center, the first for-lease, cold storage facility to be developed on a speculative basis in South Florida, and already, the company has landed a tenant to occupy the 312,000-square-foot building in its entirety. Bridge recently signed FreezPak to a full-building lease of the facility, which is currently underway in Hialeah, Fla.

Bridge Point Cold Logistics Center. Image courtesy of Bridge Industrial

Bridge Point is being erected on a 20-acre site at the intersection of N.W. 162nd St. and N.W. 102nd Ave., offering immediate access to the Florida Turnpike and close proximity to Interstate 75, as well as ease of access to Miami International Airport and Port of Miami, which is just 20 miles southeast.

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Upon completion, the property will offer such features as front-load design with 50-foot clear heights, 48 dock-high doors, 3 percent office finish, a 180-foot truck court and additional 55-foot staging space.

Bridge Point’s state-of-the-art refrigeration capabilities will include broad temperature flexibility in all units to accommodate both cooler and freezer users. The property will also provide ample car and trailer parking.

Bridge is developing Bridge Point in a joint venture with PGIM Real Estate. With the assistance of CBRE, the partners secured a $67 million construction loan for the project from Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. in 2020.

High demand sub-sector

The loud cry for cold storage accommodations in the industrial sector is only getting louder. Over the last two years, e-commerce has been driving the rapid growth in demand for refrigerated warehouse space nationally due to the lifestyle changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a January 2022 CommercialEdge report. Consumer preferences for grocery deliveries and meal kits have gone on the upswing, spurring an increase in the need for well-located cold storage facilities.

Additionally, pharmaceutical companies rely on cold storage facilities to store raw materials and finished products. On a global level, the cold storage market is on track to reach $258.7 billion by 2027, increasing at a 13.3 percent compound annual growth rate, according to a report by KBV Research.

Bridge is doing its part to add to the national supply of cold storage offerings. In late 2019, for example, Bridge and PGIM launched a $150 million national cold storage investment program with the goal of developing $400 million of Class A facilities and repositioning existing facilities across the U.S.

Moreover, Bridge has a specialized cold storage division, Bridge Cold, and presently it has a cold storage development pipeline that exceeds 1 million square feet of Class A product spanning the company’s core industrial supply-constrained markets. FreezPak’s new home at Bridge Point is on schedule to reach completion in the fourth quarter of 2022.