Cold Storage’s Automation Curve is Just Beginning
- September 15, 2026
Cold storage development is entering a modernization cycle, and the shift is about far more than square footage.
Most conversations in industrial real estate start with the building – where to site it, what it costs, how fast it can be delivered. A session at CREDA’s I.CON Cold Storage this week moderated by Eric Brown, president of ALTA Refrigeration, took the opposite approach, asking what the operation itself demands before the building is considered. Brown was joined by […]
Cold storage development requires close coordination among developers, owners and contractors. At CREDA’s I.CON Cold Storage conference in Dallas, a panel of five experts offered their best practices for cold storage project teams. Moderator Don Tuttle, director of cold storage at Scannell Properties, is a developer who started out as a general contractor. Having worked with all five members of the panel, he hand-selected the group to […]
As cold storage developers navigate a market that has shifted from rapid speculative growth toward more selective development, two approaches are emerging as practical ways to meet demand: adapting existing industrial buildings and developing highly customized facilities for users with specific operational needs. At a session at CREDA’s I.CON Cold Storage this week in Dallas, moderator Steven Majich, managing director […]
Cold storage development rarely follows a straight line from concept to completion. Tight timelines, specialized infrastructure, evolving end-user requirements and challenging existing conditions can create significant risks – and opportunities – throughout the development process. At the CREDA I.CON Cold Storage conference this week in Dallas, the “From Paper to Project Case Studies: The Construction Room” session examined two cold […]
For the cold storage industry, the past several years has been a lesson in just how quickly market fundamentals can change. The sector entered the pandemic with strong demand and rising valuations, only to face a series of disruptions that eventually pushed occupancy, pricing and investor sentiment lower. Now, according to two analysts who closely follow the […]
When it comes to structuring complex industrial leases, there is rarely a single playbook. That was the core message from a session at I.CON Cold Storage this week moderated by David Sours, cold storage expert and senior vice president at CBRE, who walked through two different deal types with Kevin Kelly, senior vice president at CBRE, and Zachary Romano, chief operating officer and partner at RL Cold. The two examples – a second-generation leasing case […]
Attendees at the I.CON Cold Storage conference this week toured a facility that illustrates one of the sector’s more compelling challenges: converting a decades-old bulk storage shell into a fully operational, USDA-compliant food processing plant. The Alston Construction team led the tour of the 63,500-square-foot Halperns’ Steak and Seafood facility in Arlington, Texas, and Todd Williams, general manager for Halperns’ Texas, walked attendees through the frigid rooms filled with everything […]