Industrial Plants Getting a Re-Design

CHICAGO—The American landscape is littered with vacant industrial buildings that have outlived their usefulness. This can create a monumental burden for cities and regions that have suffered from economic turmoil. According to a recent federal study, for example, for Detroit the cost to tear down its abandoned industrial buildings and ready the sites for other uses could run as high as $1 billion.

And with many developers in the US gearing up to build the next generation of industrial facilities, the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors and the Industrial Asset Management Council have joined together to do a series of studies on how developers can extend the lifecycle of new buildings by making them flexible enough for quick and efficient repurposing if business needs change.

“The goal is to make sure these buildings don't fall into functional obsolescence, and SIOR and IAMC are reevaluating how space is utilized in a variety of asset classes,” Angela West, the president of SIOR, tells GlobeSt.com. The project, called DesignFlex 2030, will eventually encompass distribution, food processing and pharmaceutical development. “There are quite a lot of strategic changes happening in the office environment,” she points out, many of which are meant to ensure users reconfigure their offices in a way that includes the most modern technology, and industrial properties should go through the same process.

The first of these studies, “Recipe for Change: The Flexible Food Processing Plant of the Future,” was just published. Most newly built food processing plants only last 20 to 30 years, with some production lines shutting down after only a few years of operational use, the researchers found. But the team designed a prototype with six key innovations that, according to the study, “can help inform the future facilities plans of food processing firms as they face disruptive technological change, a shifting regulatory landscape, and rapidly turning business cycles.”

And the study does not just address the long-term future, West says. “Many of these proposals help the communities surrounding the buildings as well,” and ease the process of development by increasing public acceptance. The researchers advise for example, that builders incorporate architecturally significant features and attractive landscaping not normally associated with things like meatpacking. In addition, they recommend a minimal use of hard-to-remove concrete, single level open plans, and self contained modular buildings-within-buildings for efficient conversion to other uses.

Other recommendations for the next generation of food processing plants include: the use of reprogrammable robots that will increase users' ability to meet changing demands; complete energy independence, self-sustaining water generation and other environmental enhancements the team says could be required in the future; placing food processing plants closer to consumer markets, a trend already begun; and increased use of data analytics to help users have more nimble responses to whatever new trends emerge.

SIOR and IAMC will hold a breakout session on the issue at SIOR's April conference, rather than the Chicago conference in October, since by that time the researchers will have completed and published three white papers – food processing, pharmaceuticals, and distribution, allowing for a much more in-depth discussion.

But hopefully, the project will be looked at as not just a design for plants to be built in 2030, West says. “It's absolutely a collection of ideas to evaluate and look at the possibility of including them in current projects.”