Maintenance
Part of What to check in industrial space before you lease: clear height, docks, yard, and services
Industrial space requirements for people who want the details
Industrial space requirements derived from your own numbers, plus the permission layer: districts, performance standards, fire and environmental offices.
An industrial requirement is a set of numbers your operation produces, not a set of features a listing offers. Throughput produces a dock count. Inventory produces a clear height. Equipment produces a power load and a floor load. Vehicles produce a yard. Write those numbers down first and the search becomes a filter rather than a tour.
The second half of the requirement is permission: whether the address allows what you do, at the hours you do it, with what you keep outside. That is decided locally, and this page shows how to get the answer.
What to take away
- Derive the building specification from your operation's numbers: pallets, movements, machines, vehicles, people, hours.
- The permission question is separate from the building and is answered by the planning office, the fire authority and sometimes an environmental regulator.
- Anything you keep in the yard, and any hour you work outside the daytime, is where industrial districts most often say no.
From operation to specification
Work down this table with your own figures. The right-hand column is what you will test buildings against.
Operation Facts to Building Requirements
Operation fact
- Pallet positions
- Clear height, aisle width, column grid
- Vehicle movements
- Dock doors, levelers, truck court
- Trailers on site
- Trailer parking separate from cars
- Heaviest machine
- Slab thickness, load rating, flatness
- Electrical load
- Service size, voltage, transformer location
- Process services
- Gas, air, water, drains, interceptor
- Stored commodity
- Sprinkler design, in-rack protection
Building requirement
- Pallet positions
- Vehicle movements
- Trailers on site
- Heaviest machine
- Electrical load
- Process services
- Stored commodity
| Fact about your operation | Building requirement it produces |
|---|---|
| Pallet positions you must hold, at your rack module | Clear height under the lowest obstruction, floor area at your aisle width, column grid that divides into the module |
| Inbound and outbound vehicle movements per day, by vehicle type | Number and type of dock doors, grade-level doors, leveler capacity, truck court depth and turning |
| Trailers on site at once | Trailer parking separate from car parking |
| Heaviest machine, rack loading, any mezzanine | Slab thickness and load rating, flatness where your trucks need it |
| Connected electrical load, motor starting loads | Incoming service size and voltage, spare capacity, transformer location |
| Processes using gas, compressed air, water, drainage | Service capacity for each, floor drains, interceptor if needed |
| What you store, how it is packaged, how high | Sprinkler design suited to the commodity, in-rack protection if required |
| Staff on the largest shift | Office area, restrooms, parking, welfare space |
| Hours of operation, including night movements | A district and a lease that permit them |
| Material kept outside, vehicles, skips, containers | Yard area, screening, and a district that allows outdoor storage |
If you cannot fill a row, you do not yet have a requirement for that item, and you will accept whatever the building has. The dimensions themselves, and how to measure them on site, are explained in industrial space.
Suppose you must hold 1,000 pallet positions. The rack module is 8 feet wide and holds two pallets per level, four levels high, at 110 inch beam spacing. That is eight pallets per bay, so 125 bays, or 1,000 feet of rack.
Split across the two sides of one 12 foot aisle in a 20 foot deep module, the storage block is 500 feet long and 20 feet deep, about 10,000 square feet. Clear height is four levels at 110 inches, 440 inches, plus 24 inches above the top load, so about 39 feet under the lowest obstruction.
A 32 foot clear building cannot take it, so the search starts at 36 to 40 feet.
The rows people underestimate
Movements, not doors. A building with many doors and a shallow truck court cannot use them. Describe the largest vehicle that will call and how often, and test the court against that. Typical planning figures are about 120 feet of court depth for 90 degree loading and about 90 feet for 45 degree loading; check the court against the largest vehicle you run.
Underestimated Rows to Verify
- Test truck court against largest vehicle
- Ask utility about motor starting loads
- Describe commodity class for sprinklers
- Count largest shift for welfare space
- State growth and spare capacity needs
Starting loads. Compressors, chillers and large motors draw far more at start than at run. The utility, not the landlord, can tell you what the supply will tolerate and what an upgrade would take.
Commodity class. What you store decides whether the sprinklers are adequate. Plastics, aerosols, foam, alcohol and packaged liquids each change the answer. Your insurer will ask, so have the description ready.
People. Warehouse staff need parking, restrooms and somewhere to eat, and the largest shift sets the number. Federal guidance on warehouse working conditions is collected on OSHA's warehousing page, and it is a reasonable checklist for what the building must physically support.
Growth. If volume is uncertain, the requirement should say so: spare bays, spare power, spare yard, and a right to expand into adjoining space.
Permission: how to find out
Industrial use is regulated in layers, and none of the layers is the landlord's responsibility.
Permission Layers to Check
- Read zoning use table for your process
- Check performance standards at boundary
- Confirm outdoor storage rules and screening
- Ask fire authority about hazardous materials
- Obtain environmental permits for emissions, runoff
- The zoning district.Find the address on the municipality's zoning map and read the use table for that district. Industrial districts are usually graded: light, general, heavy, with a use table for each. Find your process, not your industry, in the table. Note whether it is permitted outright, conditional, or absent.
- Performance standards.Many districts regulate noise at the boundary, vibration, odor, dust, lighting, and hours, regardless of the use category. Read them against your operation, especially if there is housing nearby.
- Outdoor storage.Frequently a separate line in the use table, with screening and setback rules. A previous tenant's yard full of containers proves nothing about what is permitted.
- Fire and hazardous materials.The fire authority classifies what you store and may require permits for quantities of flammable, combustible or hazardous materials. In most cities that office is the fire department's fire prevention division; in New York City it is the FDNY Bureau of Fire Prevention. Ask them directly, with your inventory described.
- Environmental permits.Air emissions, process wastewater, stormwater from a yard, and waste handling may each need a permit from a regional or state body. Runoff from a working yard sits under the federal NPDES stormwater program and, in practice, under a state or regional permit. Which one applies depends on the process; your trade association or an environmental consultant can name the office.
- Traffic.Some authorities require a traffic assessment for operations above a threshold of vehicle movements, or restrict truck routes near the site.
Environmental permit offices are regional. One example is the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which issues air permits in its part of southern California.
Write to each office describing the operation honestly, and keep the replies. The general approach to these enquiries, and what to do when an answer is conditional, is in zoning and permits.
What the landlord will require from you
Industrial landlords ask about the operation as much as the balance sheet, because the operation can damage the building or the neighbors.
What Landlords Ask For
- Process, materials, storage heights, vehicle movements
- Racking and mezzanine plan
- Financial information and guarantor
- Insurance confirmation including hazardous materials
- Permits you hold or will obtain
Expect a standard pack of questions. Have these ready:
- Financialstwo to three years of statements, plus a guarantor's statement if the entity is new or thinly capitalized.
- Use descriptionwhat you make, store or handle, in plain terms, and the commodity class for the sprinkler review.
- Insurancea certificate of insurance naming the landlord as additional insured, with typical industrial limits starting around $1 million per occurrence.
- Hazardous materials disclosurea list of chemicals and the maximum quantity on site, with the permits you hold. Thresholds vary by jurisdiction.
- Hoursshifts, night movements, weekend operation, and any quiet hours the district imposes.
- Yard usewhat stays outside, how much area it takes, and how it is screened.
- Utilities and processgas, compressed air, water, drainage, and the connected electrical load.
Roof, slab, dock equipment and yard paving allocations in industrial leases are covered in the pillar article above and in commercial leasing.
Write it on one page
Put the table at the top, the permission answers beneath it, and the documents you can supply at the bottom. Give that page to anyone searching for you. A representative with your numbers can reject buildings from a listing; without them, they will send you everything and let the tours decide.
One-Page Summary Contents
- Table of operation facts and requirements
- Permission answers beneath the table
- Documents you can supply at bottom
If the district itself is still open, the labor, transport and access questions in location selection come before any building.
A one page outline that works:
- Requirement tableclear height, floor area, dock and grade doors, truck court depth, power, floor load, sprinkler commodity class, office and parking counts.
- Permission answersdistrict and use category, performance standards, outdoor storage, fire permits, environmental permits, traffic or truck route limits.
- Documentsfinancials, insurance certificate, hazmat list, proposed hours, yard plan, and a reference from a previous landlord.
- Open itemswhat you have not settled, and the date you will settle it.
Common questions
What is the first number to settle?
Clear height at your rack module, because it fixes how much floor area you need, and floor area drives everything else.
Can I rely on the listing's description of the sprinklers?
No. A listing says a system exists. Whether it suits your commodity at your storage height is a question for a fire protection engineer and your insurer.
The district allows my use but not outdoor storage. Is that workable?
Only if your operation can live entirely inside, including trailers and skips. Ask whether a conditional approval for limited yard use is available, and what it costs in time.
Who tells me what environmental permits I need?
The regional or state environmental body for your process, and often the municipality's own engineering department for stormwater. Describe the process and ask; do not infer from what the last tenant did.
