Panattoni Turin project aims at Italy’s nascent online market

Panattoni will speculatively develop a 90,000 sq m logistics park near Turin having acquired a 241,000 sq m site.

Panattoni Park Turin North, (CGI pictured above) will be the company’s second project in Italy after the company opened its country office in Milan in February and committed to a 15,000 sq development in Ospedaletto Lodigiano, close to Milan.

Panattoni’s new park at Scarmagno near Turin will comprise a single-storey warehouse of just under 90,000 sq m with LED lighting, a solar rooftop, leisure facilities for employees including a canteen, sports and recreation area, and 3,700 sq m of single-storey office space.

A LEED Gold or BREEAM Very Good certificate will be sought. Construction is scheduled to start in September 2023 and on completion in 2024, 300 new jobs are expected to have been created.

As recently as 2019, Italy ranked as one of the countries in Europe with the lowest penetration of online sales, with e-commerce accounting for just over 5% of total retail turnover in that year. Advisor CBRE predicts that this share will more than double by 2024, with online sales reaching €22.3 billion by then.

Jean-Luc Saporito, managing director of Panattoni Italy, said: “Italy’s e-commerce penetration is not as advanced as other European countries, and we’ve seen growing demand for modern logistics facilities with high environmental standards. Turin is therefore well-placed to serve the surrounding region, which is one of the most prosperous in Europe and is home to more than 14 million consumers.”

Nearly 2.5 million sq m of logistics space was leased in Italy in 2021, the highest level ever recorded in the country and roughly equal to the volume of new stock that came onto the market in that year, 25% of which was speculatively built.

At end-2021, Italy’s total warehouse and industrial stock totalled just over 22 million sqm, which is lower than the average sq m per person in the EU.

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