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Old 10-06-2012, 02:13 PM
 
Location: Centre Wellington, ON
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One of the issues with making transit a viable alternative to the car for a large portion of a city's population is low density employment outside the main downtown. Although high density commercial still gets built in the form of multi-storey office and apartments above retail, the one thing that doesn't seem to be getting built is high density industrial/warehouses like in the 19th century and early 20th century buildings.

Some of these older industrial buildings really were high density, this is probably the most high density (formerly) industrial building in Toronto at 11 floors:
Dalhousie Street, Toronto, ON - Google Maps
Merchandise Building - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Warehouses in the 4-8 storey range were pretty common in Toronto too, like this one.


Although the main historic warehouse districts have been converted to office/residential lofts, there are still some high density buildings used as factories or warehouses near railway lines outside downtown in the inner city, like this Cadbury Factory:
Brockton Village, Toronto, ON - Google Maps

In addition to being difficult to serve by transit, new industrial areas in large cities like Toronto also take up huge amounts of space and act like dead zones and cut off different parts of the city from each other. One of the best examples would be the area around Pearson Intl Airport:
Toronto, ON - Google Maps

Dixie Rd, Derry Rd and Hurontario St connect relatively dense suburban areas, with residential densities around 10-20,000 ppsm for the most part, with a few census tracts that are quite a bit denser still in Mississauga's new downtown. Although it's not as if these streets would get a subway under them, they are relatively important transit routes, Hurontario's bus route is actually planned to be upgraded to LRT. However, the routes have to go through low density industrial areas (and some low density commercial) where it's difficult to justify good transit based on ridership.

With increasing land values, industrial developers seem to be adapting by increasing their floorplates with landscraper warehouses, I guess that way less land is taken up by greenspace buffers, setbacks and streets.
Ex: Toronto, ON - Google Maps

Some of them give the appearance of being 2 floors, but it's hard to tell if they're really 2 floors or just one very high floor with two rows of windows, like this (I think) light industrial development
Vaughan, ON - Google Maps

Does anyone have an idea of roughly how much higher the costs are per sf for multi-storey industrial/warehouse buildings compared to single storey? That would give an idea of how high land values would have to be for multi-storey industrial to be viable.
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Old 10-06-2012, 02:28 PM
 
Location: Centre Wellington, ON
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Singapore is the only place I'm aware of that's still building industrial/warehouse buildings above 2 storeys, here are some examples I could find.

These look like warehouses (in the port area)
Singapore - Google Maps
Singapore - Google Maps

There look like maybe some sort of high tech or light manufacturing
Singapore - Google Maps
Singapore - Google Maps

Some look almost like office buildings but I think they're still some sort of industrial (high tech?) use:
Singapore - Google Maps
http://goo.gl/maps/YGGPH
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Old 10-06-2012, 03:20 PM
 
Location: Centre Wellington, ON
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Looking into this a bit more, there are other Asian cities with high density industrial like Tokyo.

The only North American city I could find so far where high density industrial was built post-WWII is Montreal with it's shifting garment districts. At first, the Garment District was downtown, but in the 1960s it shifted West/North where these massive warehouses were built on De Gaspe Avenue:
Mile End, Montreal, QC - Google Maps

They then shifted further West/North to Avenue Chabanel where a bunch of very large warehouses were built from 1964 to 1985 according to wikipedia.
Mile End, Montreal, QC - Google Maps

There are a number of other high density buildings (most likely warehouses) in the viscinity these two post-WWII garment districts.
Mile End, Montreal, QC - Google Maps
Mile End, Montreal, QC - Google Maps
Mile End, Montreal, QC - Google Maps
Mile End, Montreal, QC - Google Maps

I guess fashion related industries would be more prone to locating in multi storey buildings than other industries though.
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Old 10-06-2012, 04:09 PM
 
Location: Centre Wellington, ON
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Tokyo.

Large multi-storey warehouses, there seems to be a lot of these around Tokyo's port
Tokyo, Japan - Google Maps

This one is a little crazy, it seems like they built a huge ramp so that tractor trailers could drive up to the different floors... I would've thought freight elevators of some sort would have been cheaper.
Tokyo, Japan - Google Maps

Smaller buildings, looks like mostly warehouses, but still dense and tightly packed.
Koto, Tokyo, Japan - Google Maps

Tokyo doesn't seem to have much industrial inland, but here's a few industrial buildings in an otherwise mostly residential area:
Koto, Tokyo, Japan - Google Maps
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Old 10-06-2012, 09:20 PM
 
Location: Centre Wellington, ON
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Hong Kong, it hard to tell whether certain buildings in Hong Kong are industrial, some of Hong Kong's apartment buildings look similar to warehouses in architecture, but I think the best way to tell them apartment is the size of floorplates. Some of Hong Kong's industrial areas are mind-bogglingly dense, it's surprising that they can be economically viable.

I'm pretty sure these in Kowloon are warehouses or industrial buildings.
Hong Kong - Google Maps

Maybe the least dense industrial area in Hong Kong, near the border with Shenzhen
Hong Kong - Google Maps
Not too far away, this one is high density
Hong Kong - Google Maps

This is one of the lower density industrial areas of Hong Kong, in the New Territories
Hong Kong - Google Maps
Another lower density industrial area
Hong Kong - Google Maps

A bit denser in outer Kowloon
Hong Kong - Google Maps

High density industrial in Kowloon, these look like they might be sweatshops, at least they look pretty sketchy
Hong Kong - Google Maps
Hong Kong - Google Maps

Very high density and more modern looking in the New Territories
Hong Kong - Google Maps
This one even says logistics, looks like some of Hong Kong's industrial estates would fit in on the Death Star...
Hong Kong - Google Maps
More in the New Territories
Hong Kong - Google Maps

Very high density and quite modern looking in the New Territories, and I think these are still industrial buildings
Hong Kong - Google Maps

Very high density, this building looks brand new. "Premium Industrial Units For Sale", Kowloon
Hong Kong - Google Maps
"Just drive your truck up to the 20th floor of the Global Gateway building"...
Hong Kong - Google Maps
I think it's safe to say the tallest industrial building in the world is somewhere in Hong Kong
Hong Kong - Google Maps

Although most of the industry seems to be in Kowloon and the New Territories, there is some on Hong Kong Island
Hong Kong - Google Maps
Hong Kong - Google Maps

Southern Hong Kong Island (around Aberdeen)
Hong Kong - Google Maps
Hong Kong - Google Maps
Hong Kong - Google Maps

Obviously I'm not advocating 30 storey warehouses, I don't think it would make sense anywhere in North America, but it is interesting to see what kind of extremes Hong Kong takes it to.
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Old 10-07-2012, 02:04 AM
nei nei won $500 in our forum's Most Engaging Poster Contest - Thirteenth Edition (Jan-Feb 2015). 

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Location: Western Massachusetts
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This appears to be a port on the left:

https://maps.google.ca/maps?q=2nd+Av...2,34.7,,0,1.52

the right is rather dense looking is a functioning or former warehouses. Ditto with the back. Go a bit further down the road (a few clicks) and you can see exposed trolley tracks. In the middle of the road, the blacktop was worn away exposing the old cobble road surface. A lot of the industrial land is decayed:

https://maps.google.ca/maps?q=2nd+Av...,,0,-1.82&z=15

move a bit forward to the boarded up building and notice something changes...Here's another warehouse:

https://maps.google.ca/maps?q=96+44t...,,0,-9.09&z=16

and these:

https://maps.google.ca/maps?q=96+44t...34.59,,0,13.52

Last edited by nei; 10-07-2012 at 02:21 AM..
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Old 10-07-2012, 04:28 AM
 
Location: Michigan
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I forget where I read it, but there was one major reason that industrial buildings because more horizontal. I think it had to do with air conditioning or logistics or something like that. I'd really have to find that article again to be sure.

Detroit has a huge stock of 20th century industrial buildings, though obviously many of them probably aren't being used anymore, especially for industrial uses. Sections of them might be though.

42.36405,-83.049852 - Google Maps

42.36405,-83.049852 - Google Maps

Google Maps
^This actually still has industrial use. Actually, it's more mixed use. Part of it is for a college and some of it is for manufacturing of small items like watches and bikes.

Google Maps
^Uhaul is planning on reusing this building.

Google Maps

Google Maps

Obviously, the largest industrial building in Detroit is the Packard Plant. It's like 3.5 million square feet in total. That's more floor space than many of the US's tallest skyscrapers. Sears* Tower in Chicago is 4.4 million square feet in comparison. (Willis still sounds weird).

Google Maps

For another interesting comparison, the nearby GM Assembly plant is 2.2 million square feet, but because of its 1 floor design, it pretty much consumes an entire neighborhood (which it did; roughly 4200 residents were relocated when this was built).

42.380469,-83.045185 - Google Maps

The newest industrial building to be built in the area (so new it doesn't show up on Google) is actually pretty small. I've driven past it a lot and it's about 5 or 6 floors and looks pretty nice. Though the area is far from urban.

http://www.baesystems.com/article/BA...ffice-building
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Old 10-07-2012, 10:50 AM
 
Location: Centre Wellington, ON
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Sounds like the BAE Systems building is more of an office than a warehouse or factory though...

Anyways, this is one area of Toronto that has a lot of old warehouses, the Fashion District, most of them are condo or office lofts now:
Fashion District, Toronto, ON - Google Maps

There's also the Distillery District, which was turned into an arts district. The rack house just across the street from the complex is still boarded up though, because floors are too low to be converted into lofts. It's possible the inside will be gutted and a tower will be built inside the building's shell.
St. Lawrence, Toronto, ON - Google Maps

There's a number of former warehouses scattered elsewhere in Toronto's downtown East End.
St. Lawrence, Toronto, ON - Google Maps

And in areas further from downtown, like

Liberty Village: Liberty Village, Toronto, ON - Google Maps
Leslieville: Leslieville, Toronto, ON - Google Maps
Junction Triangle has some too, generally lower density and more often abandonned, although this one looks like it's still used as storage: Junction Triangle, Toronto, ON - Google Maps

Waterloo, where I go to university is where Seagram's history began, these are some of their buildings, now converted into 2 storey residential loft units. The facility closed down before I came to Waterloo for my studies, so I'm not sure if there were more buildings on the vacant/parking lots in the surrounding area.
Waterloo, ON - Google Maps

Waterloo's sister city, Kitchener had a fair bit of industry too, including multi-storey warehouses, but they largely got abandonned and are being turned into office/residential lofts. They're trying to turn this area into a tech hub:
Kitchener, ON - Google Maps

Looks like the google employees were eager to see the google car (their faces aren't blurred).

There's quite a lot of very large auto-assembly plants in Southern Ontario too, the one in my parents' suburb is 5.5million sqft, although it's multiple buildings. I think Ontario produces more cars than Michigan. The ones I'm aware of are more like the GM plant, mostly 1 floor only.
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Old 10-07-2012, 02:19 PM
 
Location: Centre Wellington, ON
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Nei, those are all from the earlier part of the 20th century right? So far, aside from the warehouses in Montreal, all I could find in terms of multi-storey industrial type buildings are Self Storage buildings, like this new one in Toronto:
Riverside, Queen Street East, Toronto, ON - Google Maps
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Old 10-07-2012, 02:32 PM
 
Location: Michigan
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Quote:
Originally Posted by memph View Post
Sounds like the BAE Systems building is more of an office than a warehouse or factory though...
Yea I kinda figured it was more like an office rather than a purely industrial building. But since it was sort of gray area I sort of included it anyway. It's hi-tech industry at least.

This building in Chicago looks like it was a former industrial building; seems awfully large for anything else.
Google Maps

But then the entrance kinda makes me think that it was a large office building that was just built in that style?

Google Maps

This seems a little bit less gray area and more of the signature elements of 20th century warehouses.

Google Maps

Google Maps
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