Electromobility is the central driver of transformation and will lead to the fundamental upheaval of business models and value creation in the automotive and related industries. When production processes and flows of goods change, this has a major impact on the design, development and operation of logistics real estate.
Of course, the basic location parameters must be right. These include, for example, a strategically good location and a multimodal transport connection, space available immediately to in the medium term, or sufficient manpower. In addition, there are a number of specific requirements of the electric vehicle industry and its suppliers: energy availability, fast data connection, e-charging infrastructure and increased requirements for environmental and fire protection. In addition, there are high sustainability standards that are becoming an increasingly high priority for municipalities and neighbours as well as for tenants and users of logistics real estate.
Success factors regional development and dialogue
The Log Plaza Frankfurt (Oder) is a good reference in the field of “Rethinking logistics real estate”. The real estate developer Alcaro Invest GmbH is planning and building a multi-user industrial and logistics park here. The first construction phase on the 44-hectare site (Hall A) has already been completed and let. The tenant of Hall A, EV Cargo Global Forwarding GmbH, is building the first large-volume logistics centre for the growth industry of electric mobility. Among other things, this involves the storage, commissioning, labelling and repackaging of lithium-ion batteries, which are transported to the site by overseas container in bulk packaging and are to be prepared there directly for use in automobile production. In addition to complete product documentation, the company also offers customised quality control and pre-assembly services.
In addition to the specific building factors, the necessary overall package of future-proof site development also includes, among other things, the expansion of the transport and media technology connection of the GVZ Frankfurt (Oder), the development of further industrial areas along the A 12 motorway and the expansion of the CT terminal as a more significant site factor for environmentally friendly transport via rail.
Großes Flächen- und Arbeitskräftepotenzial
Thanks to a foresighted planning, the region of Frankfurt (Oder) is one of the few locations in the international competition, that have large available industrial sites of ten hectares or more and a significant potential skilled labour force from two countries. For both industry and upstream and downstream logistics, the region can act as a point for manufactured goods, which are distributed over a wide area from here. Due to its east-west connection, the border crossing to Poland in Frankfurt (Oder) is one of the busiest motorway border crossings in the whole of Germany. The region is networked in all directions via the connection to the Paris-Warsaw BAB 12 motorway and the B112 running in a north-south direction.
The local business development agency of the city of Frankfurt (Oder), Investor Center Ostbrandenburg (ICOB), supports the claim of Alcaro Invest, EV Cargo and the operator of the terminal for combined transport in Frankfurt (Oder), PCC Intermodal, to have a close and trusting dialogue with politicians and urban society in order to advance the region together. “As a region with a strategically favourable location on the Paris-Warsaw transport axis, we had and have a vital interest in exploiting our development potential quickly and, above all, sustainably.” In this context, he said, the great understanding for industry and logistics and the population’s great enthusiasm for value-creating jobs in the region, which is based on this, are particularly pronounced. „From the very beginning, our goal was to establish efficient logistics for industry in the freight transport hub Frankfurt an der Oder, which would support the settlement of other future-oriented sectors in the manufacturing industry.“, said Nüßlein.
In the view of the economic promoters, there is also future potential for automotive logistics settlements, for example for the consolidation and buffering of components, the import and final configuration of internationally sourced preliminary products or spare parts and after-sales logistics for the automotive industry. A key factor for regional and location development is the topic of transport and traffic.
International transport hub thanks to combined transports
Why Frankfurt (Oder) is particularly suitable for Green Logistics and especially the requirements of the future industries for holistic sustainability is also the possibility to map goods handling via rail directly from the seaports of the North Sea and especially the Baltic Sea. Road transports cause around 139.8 grams of CO2 emissions per tonne-kilometre – rail transports, in contrast, only around one tenth of that.
“Thanks to the direct connection to rail, water and motorway, very large transport capacities are already available today to ensure customer-oriented optimal flows of goods, intelligent intermodal supply chains and precisely fitting processes,” says Bernd Meewes, Managing Director of PCC Intermodal GmbH. The CT terminal Frankfurt an der Oder has developed into an international hub in European intermodal transport. This enables a very stable and regular realisation of CT relations both to the North Range ports and eastwards to Gdansk, Poznan, Kutno, Gliwice and Kolbuszowa, among others. “Currently, we already offer over 50 direct train connections per week, storage capacity for up to 1,000 containers, repair and cleaning services, as well as on-site power connections for refrigerated containers.”
Frankfurt (Oder) is an integral part of PCC Intermodal’s network of intermodal connections. The possibilities for optimising and combining international supply chains for end customers from industry and trade in the Berlin-Brandenburg capital region are efficiently supplemented with the establishment of the LogPlaza Frankfurt an der Oder. Here, PCC provides future users at the site with important services in the international supply chain from a single source, including door-to-door container transport. For EV Cargo, too, the CT terminal was one of the decisive advantages of the location, in addition to the A12 motorway.
“The transport terminal is central for us because it offers the most environmentally friendly solution for the delivery of containers,” adds Sascha Stroetges, Managing Director of EV Cargo Global Forwarding GmbH. Goods are transported from overseas primarily by rail instead of road to the region, with several trains per week from various overseas ports. As the operator of the CT terminal, PCC Intermodal manages the container transport by rail and the round trip on site. The company relies on complementary cooperations with other partners and would like to use its expertise to integrate the CT terminal more strongly into the regional economic cycle for source and destination transports.
Industries of the future and Green Logistics
The topic of green logistics has become indispensable for tenants and users as well as for municipalities and the population. In Frankfurt an der Oder, a variety of measures are therefore being implemented that contribute to sustainability, climate protection and biodiversity: electricity from renewable energies, a charging structure for electric vehicles (from e-bikes to e-trucks), very low soil sealing and a variety of voluntary measures in the area of species protection.
Green logistics basically means logistics that is as sustainable as possible, which includes climate-friendly and resource-efficient processes, structures and logistics real estate. The transformation of the logistics industry through the mobility revolution and decarbonisation makes a rethink necessary. That is why Alcaro Invest is planning to build more sustainable logistics properties with sizes ranging from 20,000 to 90,000 square metres on the site. These will be pre-equipped and equipped in such a way that they meet all the requirements of electric mobility – both in terms of licensing and user-specific requirements.
Source of article: Ramp-One – Das Medium für Logistikimmobilienentscheider (German only | external link)
Image: Joint location development in Frankfurt (Oder) and holistically and future-oriented location at the trade show Transport Logistic 2023 in Munich: Christopher Nüßlein (ICOB), Bernd Meewes (PCCI), Peter Bergmann (Alcaro Invest) and Sascha Stroetges (EV Cargo | from left to right | source: Alcaro Invest GmbH)