Supporting change at a long-standing customer
Faced with the rise of e-commerce, growth of parcel transport and spiralling customer demand for fast high-quality service, Colissimo, the parcels mail and delivery arm of La Poste Group, planned an expansion of its network. In 2017 La Poste was looking to expand from its existing parcel-sorting facility in Carvin, Hauts-de-France (62) to a new site that could accommodate coming technological and logistical innovations.
The Group therefore launched a call for tenders. Bids in response included the proposal by long-standing partner Prologis for a project in Douvrin, in the Artois-Flandres industrial park zone. The site was a brownfield industrial lot, where the previous building had been demolished and decontaminated by the regional land reclamation corporation, EPF du Nord-Pas-de-Calais, in partnership with the logistics property specialist and Siziaf, the syndicate of local communities in the Artois-Flandres industrial zone. La Poste Group is already one of Prologis’s five biggest customers, operating out of several of its platforms: Moissy-Cramayel, Roissy and Gonesse.
Building a new generation logistics warehouse
The key specification for the new Douvrin warehouse is scale. The Group plans to build the biggest platform in its parcel network, conceived as the main gateway for customers in Northern Europe and the Hauts-de-France region.
Prologis's challenge was to support its long-standing partner in restructuring its industrial process and growth, by building a high-tech site to new standards.
The new project was also an opportunity to revitalise a former industrial site with a sustainable construction that could reinvigorate the local economy.
A build-to-suit platform for e-commerce
A 26,300 sqm building with BREAM Excellent certification, handling 300,000 parcels/day, clear height of 12m, 130 loading bay doors, purpose-built transport facilities (truck parking lot, service stations, washing depot), etc, the build-to-suit platform developed by Prologis is at the cutting edge of logistics innovation.
It is highly automated, with a double sorter handling up to 32,000 parcels an hour, telescopic belt conveyors and swap bodies to serve Colissimo customers with maximum efficiency. This new generation warehouse was delivered in March 2019 and onstream for the year-end holiday period. It makes Parc de Douvrin the ideal space for e-commerce.