Covid and e-commerce, holy bread for warehouses

“The demand for warehouses in France still has a bright future ahead of it!”, comments to AFP Pierre-Louis Dumont, industrial and logistics executive director at the business real estate consulting firm CBRE.

According to the Immostat group, whose figures are the benchmark for business real estate, take-up, i.e. the number of square meters of warehouses newly let or sold to be occupied, experienced its best year since 2021.

Another symbol of this health, the Argan group, which rents warehouses to large retailers (Carrefour, Casino, Auchan...), to logisticians (FM, Geodis...) or to Amazon, has seen its rental income increase. by 10% in 2021.

Growth boosted by the delivery to the American e-commerce giant of a gigantic warehouse of 185.000 square meters on four floors, near Metz.

"There is a very strong demand, driven first by the adoption of e-commerce, which requires changing distribution networks, and then by the fact that everyone needs to do it at the same time. “, summarizes Pierre-Louis Dumont.

The pandemic was a "trend accelerator" for France, which had adopted e-commerce less than its neighbors, he notes.

However, to switch to e-commerce and be able to deliver its products to customers very quickly, a company must reorganize its supply chain, hold more stocks and use more small warehouses near cities, for so-called logistics. "last mile".

Rising rents?

Hence the proliferation of small warehouses in the heart of cities. Even if their economic weight is marginal, and should remain so according to Laetitia Dablanc, research director at Gustave Eiffel University. "It will remain a niche, but which will remain very active for a long time," she told AFP.

Another explanation, put forward by François Le Levier, of the CBRE firm: "Investors have put the brakes on traditional asset classes, such as offices, hotels... which have suffered the brunt of the health crisis, and are transferred to the logistics warehouses."

And in 2022, the sector should continue to attract despite an offer that is struggling to keep up.

Building new warehouses, which are very land-intensive, will become more and more difficult, due to French law against the artificialization of soils.

"There is no limitation for the moment, but they (companies in the sector, editor's note) know that it may happen to them, so they look at how we make multi-storey warehouses", remarks Laetitia Dablanc.

Another obstacle: the frequent opposition of local residents, as in the Gard or near Nantes, where mobilizations have dissuaded the establishment of Amazon warehouses.

"It's always more pleasant for residents to have a seniors' residence or an office building next to them than a warehouse with trucks coming and going", underlines Pierre-Louis Dumont.

As a result, rents could skyrocket.

Especially since many lessors are investors, who buy portfolios throughout Europe, with financial profitability objectives.

For them, "there is a significant growth in rental values ​​to be sought, by the scarcity of land and the law on the artificialization of soils", notes François Le Levier.