Profitable cold storage development starts long before a shovel hits the dirt; it begins with understanding that temperature-controlled facilities are highly complex operational ecosystems, not just standard industrial boxes.

Dave Aschenbrand, Strategic Services Advisory Lead for the Cold Chain Practice at Newmark, shares how developers can navigate shifting market vacancies and avoid the costly trap of building speculative ”vanilla” facilities. Drawing on over 25 years of logistics experience, he explains the danger of selecting sites strictly through a financial spreadsheet lens, emphasizing that a failure to analyze specific regional population pockets and infrastructure limits will drive supply chain costs sky-high. The discussion highlights the unforgiving nature of cold chain infrastructure, where tight construction tolerances, vapor barriers, and specialized slab design leave zero margin for error. Together with Adam Bortz, they explore how minor site constraints, like narrow dock doors that disrupt USDA inspections or inadequate turning radii, create domino-effect bottlenecks that quietly erode tenant profitability and asset value.

The conversation also looks ahead to how early collaboration with subject matter experts can balance flexible building adaptation with specialized automation to stop the bleeding of inefficient vacancy and unlock true real estate value.

Topics discussed in this episode:

• Cold storage development
• Industrial real estate strategy
• Cold chain logistics
• Operational facility design
• Industrial asset optimization

Find out more about NELSON Worldwide: https://nelsonworldwide.com/

Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts:
We hope you’re Unlocking Value in this podcast with Ozzie Nelson. Your feedback is important to us and we’d love to hear from you.

Here’s how you can help. Scroll to the bottom, rate our podcast with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Let us know what you found most helpful from this episode!

And if you haven’t done so already, give the podcast a follow, and you'll be notified when new episodes come out.