Recruiting Retail Sites for Industrial Operations

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There is a former shopping mall in Euclid, Ohio, that is now an 857,000-square-foot fulfillment center for Amazon. It is located within 60 miles of 3.4 million consumers, close to major highways and near several bus stops, which are useful for low-income warehouse workers. Newmark Knight Frank tells of this fulfillment center and the larger trends it exemplifies in a recent report on the future of commercial real estate development.

Amazon, in short, is leveraging real estate—its own and other facilities—to meet its ever-exacting timetables for consumer deliveries. Other retailers are deploying similar strategies. The end result is retail properties serving double duty to support distribution needs.