Warehouses find their niches

CEDAR RAPIDS - When it comes to commercial storage - just like residential real estate - location is one of the key factors to success.

'We believe this region continues to be one of the leading distribution points in the Midwest with its diverse manufacturing plants and less congestive transportation system,” said Brandt Worley, president of Worley Companies based in Cedar Rapids. 'Due to our central location, we offer one-day access to key markets like Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City and Omaha.”

Worley Companies, which has been in business for 35 years, operates approximately 1.3 million square feet of both ambient - or dry storage - and temperature-controlled warehouse space in the area. 'We currently have seven different warehouses in this market.”

The storage facilities available from Worley are predominantly dedicated, leased facilities.

'The current local warehousing market is presently at a high-utilization level, and we have seen limited new construction in the last year,” Worley said. 'But we also maintain a specific amount of buffer space for new growth and offer shared space arrangements.”

While there isn't a lot of seasonal shift in the warehousing business, Worley did note that space and volumes go up in late summer to early fall as companies prepare for the holiday rush.

Busy season or not, another essential success factor - and daily consideration - in commercial storage is space maximization.

'Space utilization is an ongoing challenge requiring constant evaluation and adjustment of how and where in the warehouse products get stored,” said Jay Glasford, warehouse manager for GSTC Logistics Inc. 'Inefficient use of space limits how much product will fit in the warehouse. Space is always at a premium, so all our space is highly planned out.”

Glasford noted that various types of racks and storage systems allow the warehouse to maximize space in the nine-and-a-half-acre, quarter-mile-long facility in Walford, for example.

'Each spot in this warehouse is a like a home (in a computer program). It has an address in ‘town,'” he said.

In operation since 1994, GSTC maintains 1.5 million square feet of storage, with facilities in Walford, Muscatine, Fremont and Oskaloosa. The company has expanded its storage facilities, building a new warehouse in the last year and having one currently under construction.

A few of their top priorities are keeping the space very well organized and very clean and keeping product moving.

'It's not how much space you have that makes you profitable,” Glasford explained. 'It's more important that products don't just sit. You want them to continually move in and out of the building. The more inventory turns, the more opportunity to be profitable when combining storage and handling revenue.” Glasford said that on an average day about 50 truckloads are being processed in and out of GSTC's Walford facility.

While the types of clients they deal with vary, GSTC and Worley specialize in food-grade storage, making cleanliness an important factor.

'We've worked with all kinds of customers over the years, but our core business has been and is food ingredients and animal supplements produced from corn and soybean crops,” Glasford said. 'Food-grade storage is our niche. We hear from customers that they'd rather work with someone who specializes in food-grade storage and dabbles in other areas rather than with a company that dabbles in food-grade storage.”