Top 20 warehouses: Forecast brightens for 3PL and public refrigerated warehouses

At Modern, we always write about what’s happening “inside the four walls” of warehouses. In this article, however, we’re talking about the actual warehouses—more specifically, the top 20 North American third party logistics (3PL) warehouses and public refrigerated warehouses.

To get the what’s what on the who’s who in warehousing, Modern contacted two industry insiders. Dick Armstrong, chair of Armstrong & Associates, weighs in on the 3PL side, and Mark Blanchard, president and CEO of New Orleans Cold Storage and current chair of International Association of Refrigerated Warehouses (IARW), shares his insight on the public refrigerated warehouse side.

Third-party logistics providers
This year, DHL Exel Supply Chain remains the undisputed No. 1 company with 94.6 million square feet of warehouse space spread throughout 491 facilities. While that figure is down 4.4 million square feet, or 4.44% from last year, it’s still nearly triple the amount of space (35 million square feet) operated by Jacobson Companies. Jacobson moved up to this year’s No. 2 position, trading places with GENCO Supply Chain Solutions. GENCO is currently No. 3 in the ranking with 34.7 million square feet of space. Rounding out the top 5 are No. 4 OHL with 30.1 million square feet and Caterpillar Logistics Services with 29 million square feet.

Combined, this year’s top 5 companies operate 223.4 million square feet of warehouse space, or more than 43% of the total.