Ozon moves to Zhukovsky

After a fire at a warehouse in Istra near Moscow, Ozon had to urgently look for a new distribution center. A month after the incident, the Internet holding agreed with the New Technology Company (NTC) to lease 80 thousand square meters. m in Zhukovsky near Moscow, which were built under the Polish retailer LPP, which left the Russian market. Ozon will have to pay about 500 million rubles for the new facility. in year. But experts admit that the company could get a discount for a major deal, which is now rare in the market.

Ozon has reached an agreement with NTK, founded by former LUKOIL top manager Valery Subbotin, to lease 80,000 sq. m. m in the Moscow region logopark PNK Park Zhukovsky, two sources told Kommersant in the real estate market. According to them, this facility will be a replacement for a warehouse in Istra near Moscow with an area of ​​76 thousand square meters. m, where in early August two of the three blocks of 50 thousand square meters burned down. m. Ozon confirmed that they plan to rent a warehouse in Zhukovsky for ten years and start its work in 2023. The NTK did not respond to Kommersant’s request.

Initially, the areas that Ozon intends to occupy were built for the Polish clothing retailer LPP (Reserved, Cropp, Sinsay, House, Mohito brands). After the start of the military operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine, according to Kommersant sources, the company decided to leave the Russian market and refuse from renting a logopark in Zhukovsky. Although the company itself denied that it plans to terminate the lease agreement with the owner of the facility (see Kommersant dated April 21).

At the end of June, the Russian legal entity LPP Re Trading LLC came under the control of Far East Services-FZKO from the UAE. Later, the holding’s stores resumed work, but under different signs – Re, M and Sin. A representative of Re Trading LLC confirmed to Kommersant that he had terminated the contract for the lease of space in PNK Park Zhukovsky, explaining this by the suspension of the online store.

The agreement between Ozon and NTC will be the largest transaction in the logistics real estate market this year, said Egor Dorofeev, head of the Warehouse and Industrial Property Department of the Commonwealth Partnership (CMWP). Igor Krotenkov, director of work with warehouse and industrial premises at IBC Real Estate, believes that the new warehouse will cost the holding 500 million rubles. annually.

But taking into account the volume of space occupied and the quality of the tenant, the deal will be held at a significant discount, Mr. Dorofeev believes. Although the company previously rented only large distribution centers built to their specifications, therefore, the Zhukovsky logo park will have to invest additional funds to equip a significant number of mezzanines, adds Sergey Yermilov, Union Brokers Key Account Director.

The burnt Ozon warehouse and the newly rented one are located in different parts of the Moscow region, which may be inconvenient in terms of delivery geography, but the online retailer was forced to rent a facility in Zhukovsky due to the lack of alternatives. There are no logoparks on the market with such a volume of free space, a Kommersant source in the real estate market notes. Although, according to CMWP, the share of vacant space has grown from almost zero at the end of 2021 to 6%.

In 2020–2021, there was a boom in the warehouse real estate market: at that time, the owners of logoparks managed to close a record number of transactions for the lease and sale of space. But in the first half of 2022, due to the break in supply chains and the suspension of development by grocery chains and e-commerce companies, the volume of transactions in the warehouse market in Moscow and the Moscow Region decreased by 54% year-on-year, to 474 thousand square meters. m, calculated in Knight Frank.

This year, the logistics real estate market will not be able to repeat the success, Anastasia Kornevich, director of the warehouse real estate department at Accent Capital, predicts. This trend, sums up Sergey Ermilov, will continue in the first half of 2023, since built-to-suit deals (construction for a specific customer) have not been on the market for several months.

Daria Andrianova