THE OPPORTUNITY
SDA, the express delivery courier service of Poste Italiane (the Italian postal service), required two strategically located logistics platforms to serve the needs of the city of Bologna and the Emilia Romagna region.
THE CHALLENGE
Prologis Park Bologna Interporto, located north of Bologna near the municipalities of Bentivoglio and San Giorgio in Piano, is one of the largest intermodal (rail/road) logistics platforms in Europe. Located near the A13 motorway, which connects Bologna and Padua, it offers close proximity to national and European cargo transport routes - the ideal site for a hub where SDA needed 30,000 square metres of modern logistics and office space to serve the rapidly growing Italian e-commerce market. The new hub had to be designed around SDA’s specific needs to accommodate its new state-of-the-art, high-speed package sorter that can handle 34,000 packages and envelopes per hour.
THE SOLUTION
Prologis’ ability to design and build a broad range of logistics facilities in strategic locations enabled the company to deliver two new Class-A, build-to-suit (BTS) logistics facilities. The first is a 27,600 square metre building with 166 loading bays specifically designed by Prologis to accommodate SDA’s package and envelope sorting system. The entire building had to be planned around the sorter, with a key requirement being to ensure that the floor space was completely free of pillars. The second facility is a 4,000 square metre last-mile distribution centre designed to serve the city of Bologna.
These two modern, Class A facilities are built to the highest international standards and include office space for 750 employees, as well as logistics and distribution areas, large outdoor areas with ample green space and approximately 500 parking spaces. Both state-of-the-art facilities have LEED® Gold certification and feature smart digital sensors that enable the customer to optimise the buildings’ performance, minimise their environmental impact by monitoring energy consumption, manage maintenance schedules and detect operational malfunctions, thereby reducing costs.
THE TAKEAWAY
Prologis provides customers with state-of-the art, built-to-suit facilities designed to meet their specific requirements. “We were able to design buildings around SDA’s specific needs, locate them strategically in one of Europe’s biggest intermodal parks and deliver them quickly and on schedule”, commented Sandro Innocenti, Senior Vice President and Country Manager of Prologis Italia.