Panattoni Italy Launches 90,000 sqm Speculative Logistics Development near Turin after Site Acquisition

Panattoni, Europe’s largest developer and deployer of institutional capital in the industrial and logistics real estate sector, has launched the speculative development of a 90,000 sqm logistics park in Scarmagno near Turin, after acquiring a 241,000 sqm site. This marks Panattoni’s second project in Italy since its recent openin, with a first commitment to develop 15,000 sqm Grade A logistics development project in Ospedaletto Lodigiano, 30 minutes from Milan’s city centre.

Jean-Luc Saporito, Managing Director of Panattoni Italy, said: “Panattoni Park Turin North will be located in Italy’s economic heartland with excellent connections to Turin airport and its container terminal, both just 30 minutes away, as well as France and Switzerland. Italy still has a lot of catching up to do in terms of e-commerce penetration and demand for modern logistics facilities with high environmental standards has exploded and shows no signs of abating. Turin is also well-placed to serve the surrounding region which is one of the most prosperous in Europe and is home to more than 14 million consumers. We are confident our new park will attract a lot of interest from players active in Italy’s rapidly expanding logistics services industry.”

Panattoni’s new park in Turin will comprise a single-story warehouse building totalling just under 90,000 sqm with a clear net height of 12 metres, LED lighting, photovoltaic panels, leisure facilities for employees including a canteen, sports and recreation area, and 3,700 sqm of office spaces. The complex is targeting LEED Gold or BREEAM Very Good Certification and will offer ample parking space for trucks and cars. Construction of the new development is scheduled to start in September 2023. Upon completion in 2024, the complex is expected to generate up to 300 new jobs for Turin and the surrounding region.

Located adjacent to the A5 tollgate near the A4 motorway, Panattoni Park Turin North is only 20 minutes away from Turin by car and an hour from Milan while Genoa, Lyon and Zurich are all within a two- to four-hour drive. Turin Interporto is Europe’s second-largest dry port for high-tech products, with 200 operators handling three million tonnes of goods per annum. A dry port is an intermodal terminal directly connected to a seaport with high-capacity modes of transport including rail.

As recently as 2019, Italy ranked as one of the countries in Europe with the lowest penetration of online sales, with e-commerce accounting for just over 5% of total retail turnover in that year. Advisor CBRE predicts that this share will more than double by 2024, with online sales reaching EUR 22.3 billion by then. Nearly 2.5 million sqm of logistics space was leased in Italy in 2021, the highest level ever recorded in the country and roughly equal to the volume of new stock that came onto the market in that year, 25% of which was speculatively built. At end-2021, Italy’s total warehouse and industrial stock totalled just over 22 million sqm, which is lower than the average sqm volume per person in the EU.

Brownfield conversion and redevelopments of abandoned factories are rising up the agenda of logistic developers and public administration departments in Italy, given the large volume of existing brownfields (almost 8,500 km2, equal to the size of the region of Umbria) and the willingness to preserve greenfield locations.

Jean-Luc Saporito concluded: “Italy’s logistics real estate market is clearly underdeveloped compared to other countries in Europe and we continue to scour the market for new sites and development opportunities.”