Venlo, a south-eastern Dutch city near to the German border, has emerged as the most desirable European logistics location in a survey conducted by Prologis among occupiers.
Venlo, a south-eastern Dutch city near to the German border, has emerged as the most desirable European logistics location in a survey conducted by Prologis among occupiers.
The rankings form part of a new report entitled Europe’s Most Desirable Logistics. It is based on a survey Prologis’ research team conducted among 160 occupiers of logistics property from a variety of sectors.
Venlo, which is also close to Belgium, is the location for 1.3 million of Class A and Class B logistics space. Prologis operates 107,000 m2 of Class A space in the market. Last year Prologis signed leasing agreements totalling more than 38.000 m2, more than half the stock leased in Venlo in 2012.
Ali Nassiri, head of research & strategy at Prologis Europe told PropertyEU: 'Venlo has become an established logistics location over the last decade, particularly for European distribution. Its location on the borders with the Netherlands and Germany with a significant hinterland (Ruhr area) makes it an interesting location.
'On top of that is its favourable governmental policy towards logistics and good intermodal infrastructure facilities with a direct inland barge and rail line to Europe’s largest container port, Rotterdam. It is therefore a truly tri-modal location with a wide set of distribution centre users so it is not dependent on one economic sector.'
Nassiri continued: 'Interestingly Venlo has had a slightly higher vacancy rate compared to other markets three years ago, but strong demand and very limited new supply caused vacancy rates to come down by over 800 basis points to a level of around 9% today.'
The Antwerp-Brussels region in Belgium and the Dutch port city of Rotterdam are the second and third most popular locations.
The three Benelux markets are tipped to retain their dominant positions five years into the future, though Rotterdam takes second place from Antwerp-Brussels in the ranking for 2018.
The Rhine-Ruhr region of Germany is in fourth place in the rankings for both 2013 and 2018, while the Spanish capital is in fifth place in 2013 but slips to seventh five years later.
Pan-regional Romania - the only non-western European market to feature in the top 10, moves from eighth place in 2013 to fifth place in 2018.
The full report is available on the Prologis website.
