CHICAGO—The American landscape is littered with vacant industrial buildings that have outlived their usefulness. This can create a monumental burden for cities and regions that have suffered from economic turmoil. According to a recent federal study, for example, for Detroit the cost to tear down its abandoned industrial buildings and ready the sites for other uses could run as high as $1 billion.

And with many developers in the US gearing up to build the next generation of industrial facilities, the Society of Industrial and Office Realtors and the Industrial Asset Management Council have joined together to do a series of studies on how developers can extend the lifecycle of new buildings by making them flexible enough for quick and efficient repurposing if business needs change.

“The goal is to make sure these buildings don't fall into functional obsolescence, and SIOR and IAMC are reevaluating how space is utilized in a variety of asset classes,” Angela West, the president of SIOR, tells GlobeSt.com. The project, called DesignFlex 2030, will eventually encompass distribution, food processing and pharmaceutical development. “There are quite a lot of strategic changes happening in the office environment,” she points out, many of which are meant to ensure users reconfigure their offices in a way that includes the most modern technology, and industrial properties should go through the same process.