Shed of the Month: Back to the Future

By Liza Helps, Property Editor, Logistics Matters

Reminiscent of the brick built warehouses of the C19 century British Land’s multi-storey logistics space in Southwark, South London could be a blueprint for the urban warehousing of the future…

Southwark Urban Logistics, Mandela Way, Bermondsey, SE1 5SZ

Developer: British Land

Contractor: McLaren Construction

Letting agents: JLL and DTRE

Unit size: 167,660 ft2

Power: 2 MvA

Sustainability: BREEAM Outstanding EPC A+

Wired Score: Platinum

Quoting rent: £27.50 – 35 per ft2

It’s wet and there are no cabs for love nor money meaning I had to trudge from London Bridge to Mandela Road, Southwark – without an umbrella – a roughly half hour walk passing by some of the more uninspiring and positively outdated industrial areas of southeast London and avoiding the myriad electric parcel delivery vans silently and stealthily going about their business.

Not the most auspicious start to a warehouse viewing.

But that’s the bad news – all of it.

The first glimpse of the building walking down Dunton Road from Willow Walk is broken up by trees – but even through the foliage, its big but not out of place. From this side it’s a modern box but not necessarily screaming ‘monstrous’ warehouse. Coming closer and crossing Mandela Way to the frankly ugly and unimpressive large Tesco superstore, the yellow/white London brick façade almost disguises  the building so cleverly does it blend with that familiar vista of traditional London architecture. If you did not know that this was a modern warehouse you’d think it was a Grade II listed office or residential conversion.

Looks matter.

British Land is a past master at inner city construction being behind the development of the 32-acre Broadgate office and retail campus in the City of London next to Liverpool Street Station, as well as the recent  Paddington Basin development in West London but this is its first dedicated ground up industrial and logistics space in the Capital.

The stock exchange listed investor developer has a mantra to bring forward ‘Places People Prefer’ and from a neighbour perspective this facility ticks all the boxes. Right from the get go there was a huge effort put into community involvement including the setting up of a WhatsApp group with the contractor and subsequent thoughtful decision making meant that windows didn’t overlook residential neighbours, mature trees were left on boundary lines, the façade facing those residential neighbours was stepped back so as not to dominate views and block daylight with each step made into a green roof with rooftop solar PV arrays. Even the marshalling yard has been totally enclosed so neighbours can sleep undisturbed by the noise of 24 hours usage.

So, the building is pretty and well landscaped, but can it actually be functioning logistics space?

“Definitely!” says British Land’s head of development Paul Case. Not necessarily in a traditional way but certainly for that consolidation, urban/ultra urban last mile piece.

This scheme has clearly a labour of love for Case and at its core its central tenet is ‘to provide working space as flexibly as possible’.

“The inspiration behind this development is the fact that some 25% of the Capital’s industrial space has been lost over the past 20 years – some 6 million ft2.”

Each floor of the building is a warehouse in itself with 6m eaves height for the ground floor warehouse and 4m for the upper floors and served by a central bank of 14 lifts, five of which have a 5.4 tonne capacity, with a further three rated at 3.5 tonne capable of carrying EV cargo bikes.

The ground floor level warehouse has 50kn/m2 floor loading, the first 25kn/m2 and the remaining two upper stories a 15kn/m2 floor loading.

The space is surprisingly open using a 10m x 10m column spacing throughout and it is also light with opaque windows along all sides on the lower floors and roof lights to the top floor.

There is no effort to disguise what the space is  – steel and concrete abound. This is industrial working space.

Because of its enclosed shared marshalling yard there is no limit on operation which there would have been had the yard been more traditional. The goods vehicle entrance is off a private road from Mandela Way and operated via a ANPR booking in system. Inside the yard there are two level access, four lift level access and three dock level doors with EV charging in place plus a further five rapid EV chargers on the parking spaces.

It may not suit delivery from larger HGVs but with the various vehicle and ULEZ charges in the capital  it is not likely that these would be  massively in use anyway.

Because of the marshalling yard, the ground floor warehouse totals 32,411 ft2 whereas the upper floors are larger incorporating the space over the marshalling yard itself. This means that there is a mezzanine office area between the ground and first floor space totalling some 8,000 ft2. The first floor totals 49,274 ft2 while the second is 43,720 ft2 and the third 33,288 ft2.

Due to the central placement of the cargo lifts the property can be split between floors providing units from as small as 1,486 ft2.

The space is sprinkler enabled and there is 2MvA of power. The PV array has the potential to provide a further 315kW at peak.

There is shared amenity space and reception on the ground floor with a first floor communal terrace.

The devil is in the detail with a facility such as this and British Land seems to have  gone into  that detail with a fine toothcomb and while it may not necessarily  be solely let to a logistics operator, it is an industrial and logistics space in the heart of London and a template for  the intensification of urban space going forward.

Even the rain could not dampen my spirits on my way home.