A ground-breaking ceremony was held this week to mark the official start of construction of a new logistics centre at Steyr, Austria, to serve BMW’s nearby engine plant.
Contract logistics services provider Industrie-Logistik-Linz will rent the property and use it to consolidate activities from several of BMW Steyr’s external warehouses to shorten material flows and transport routes.
A BMW Group spokeswoman told Automotive Logistics: “We will centralise 14 ‘little’ warehouses into the newer, bigger and more modern warehouse. Furthermore, the new warehouse is closer to our plant in Steyr and situated in an industrial park. This will also relieve the local traffic situation.”
The new base should be completed next August, said Garbe Industrial Real Estate, which is building it. It will have 10 rear loading bays and six sectional doors to allow for side loading, and will offer a total of 20,000 sq.m of storage space, which can be subdivided into 5,000 sq.m units, as well as around 550 sq.m of office space.
Garbe, of Hamburg, Germany, is investing €18m ($20.5m) in the project, its first development in Austria. “The Austrian market for logistics real estate is of such a size that companies are increasingly discovering that renting can be a more attractive option than personal investment,” said Garbe CEO, Jan Dietrich Hempel.
