What's Ahead for Cold Storage in 2024

Marty Khait, author of R&FF’s Farm to Frozen series, discusses the cold storage market.

By Kelley Rodriguez, Editor-in-Chief, Marty Khait, Contributing writer

Marty Khait, co-founder and managing principal at Yukon Real Estate Partners, and author of R&FF’s special series, Farm to Frozen, joins R&FF Editor in Chief Kelley Rodriguez on From the Cold Corner to discuss what’s ahead in 2024 for the U.S. cold storage market.

There’s been quite a bit of activity this year in terms of groundbreakings and new facilities being opened. A few of the highlights include:

Interstate Warehousing with 30,000 pallets on Route 66 in Kingman, Arizona,
Progressive Logistics and NewCold opened sites this year in the Indianapolis metro.
In addition to some acquisitions, Lineage opened new facilities in Houston and Colorado.
Arcadia Cold opened in Phoenix.
Compass Cold opened the first part of a multi-phase development in the Arkansas River Valley.
FreezPak opened four sites this year, including Chicago.

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There were groundbreakings throughout the U.S., in Kansas City, Mississippi, Houston, Charleston, Wilmington and the list goes on.

“I think that's only a partial list, but it's an exciting list - it's a big list,” Khait said. “It's a bigger list than we've ever seen. To me, it seems like the projects that were delivered this past year were also the most varied.”

In the last year or so, Khait said he’s seen more developers and owner/operators diverge in the design and construction of cold storage projects.

“We’ve seen them experiment and that's been fun to watch. We saw two smaller format buildings get delivered in Massachusetts, they're less than 100,000 square feet. We saw mobile racking be utilized. We saw buildings designed for multi-tenant situations. These are things that weren't contemplated before,” he said. “I'm just excited to see, you know as these buildings get delivered, as they get filled up with food and product, to see what shakes out – you know, is there a prototype?”

The bigger takeaway from 2023, Khait said, is the new entrants in the cold storage business.

“You have to think that they are really competing for a lot of the same customers so ultimately this is an incredible thing for our cold supply chain.”

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Kelley Rodriguez is the Editor-in-Chief of Refrigerated & Frozen Foods. An award-winning journalist, she has over 15 years’ experience in writing, editing and content curation, with roles in print, television, radio and digital formats. Kelley holds a journalism degree from Otterbein University and an MLIS from Kent State University, both in Ohio.

Marty Khait is a national leader in cold storage development and investment. As co-founder and managing principal of Yukon Real Estate Partners, Marty and his team have gained the trust of major firms such as Coca Cola, Rich's Foods and RLS Partners to solve their real estate needs. By working hand-in-hand with the nation's most prominent food companies, Marty is seasoned in the challenges currently facing food supply chains and their managers. Marty's insights on cold storage and the food industry have been featured in Refrigerated and Frozen Foods, including the founding author of R&FF’s Farm to Frozen series, and the Dallas and Austin Business Journals. Yukon Real Estate Partners helps supply chain managers find custom solutions for cold storage and production space that are cost-effective and require minimal commitments.