Envision Enters Cold Storage Sector With $1.5B in Purchasing Power

Envision Cold, a new cold storage company, has entered the scene with $1.5 billion in buying and development power. It has already acquired assets in Oakland, San Francisco, Laredo, Texas, and Vancouver, BC.

Newmark advised on the capital raise and formation of the company, led by Newmark Co-Presidents of Debt & Structured Finance, Jordan Roeschlaub, and Dustin Stolly. Newmark secured $500 million for its capitalization.

Envision plans to continue acquiring and developing a network of facilities across North America, focusing on markets that are underserved by cold storage from both a physical infrastructure and customer service perspective.

The company’s variety of services includes traditional cold storage, import/export services, transportation, and blast freezing.

“This investment in Envision Cold serves as validation of the strength of the cold storage market, especially when people in other segments of the commercial real estate market have had trouble raising capital,” Brian Good, CEO of iBorrow, tells GlobeSt.com.

“We continue to see very strong fundamentals in the cold storage subsegment, with demand from users remaining strong while the market remains constrained in terms of product.

Good said that cold storage is also “attractive” for strong players due to its high barriers to entry.

“This is a very niche property type, with high costs of development that require developers to be genuine experts in the subsegment. In practice, this has resulted in a market with two big players controlling roughly 70% of the space. We’re excited to see the continued development of the cold storage subsegment.”