High Density Industrial (largest, suburban, downtown, subway)
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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.
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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:
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.
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.
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).
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).
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.
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
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.
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
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?
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