Managing Industrial Real Estate Demands to Meet Retailers' Evolving Supply Chain Needs

More than ever, consumers are demanding speed, convenience, and access to broader options from the retail industry. This growing pressure has compelled retailers to enhance, and in many cases reimagine, their supply chain network—which, in turn, has prompted the need for modified industrial and logistics space. Our clients’ responses have included  increased number of locations and larger centers to more thoughtful construction, planning, and technology. This response to their supply chain challenges has been critical to retailers surviving and even thriving in 2020.

Seyfarth’s Real Estate Development team tackles these challenges by first developing a deep understanding of each client’s complex supply chain needs and growth expectations. For one large retail client, it was critical for our lawyers to understand how their facilities managed product arrival, storage requirements, and distribution for consumer consumption. Having this unique insight allowed our attorneys to better and more quickly negotiate leases and navigate ground-up development projects, and equipped our team to anticipate any issues, avoiding minor disruptions that might ripple into significant challenges for the client.

We have helped several national and international retail clients keep pace with their aggressive plans for expansion of industrial holdings, and secured favorable long-term leases in a very competitive environment. These transactions have all presented unique title, environmental, air rights, construction, and tax incentive challenges that our clients and our team have creatively addressed.

For our developer and investor clients, industrial is currently the most reliable asset class for growth. Seyfarth’s depth and experience in this space helps them grow and achieve their goals in this competitive market.

As a response to this trend and to keep up with client demand, Seyfarth has proudly tripled the size of its industrial leasing and development team in the last 18 months.