Swire Cold Storage (SCS) has entered into a contract to purchase a 70,170 square meter property at the 256-hectare Sydney Business Park in Sydney’s North West. The Melbourne-headquartered company intends to open a 32,000 square meter refrigerated warehouse and distribution center at the industrial park, situated on Richmond Road off the M7. It joins a growing list of companies that are investing at the site, among them McDonald’s Restaurants, Costco, Wholesale IKEA and Bunnings Warehouse.
Swire, which will soon file a formal application to develop the property, plans to begin construction next year and have the first phase of the distribution center operational by 2017. The company, a unit of John Swire & Sons, ranks as Australia’s largest cold-chain logistics service provider, offering temperature-controlled warehousing, refrigerated transport and distribution services to retail and foodservice customers nationwide.
Swire operates a network of 14 temperature-controlled warehouses doing business as in every state of Australia, with a capacity of 298,000 pallet spaces totaling over 68 million cubic feet. The facilities are supported by a fleet of 42 Frigmobile trucks and 90 refrigerated trailers.
In recent years Swire has made substantial investments in developing new facilities in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The company maintains a land-bank for further development and expansion in the Australian market, and has been active in developing purpose-built single customer facilities for clients looking to outsource major elements of their refrigerated storage and logistics requirements.
Swire Cold Storage is also a 50% shareholder in Polar Fresh, which was formed to manage two large distribution centers for Coles in Brisbane and Melbourne.
Sister companies of SCS in Vietnam, China and the USA operate respectively as Swire Cold Storage Vietnam Ltd, Swire Pacific Cold Storage and United States Cold Storage.
