SocraticGadfly: Transportation/warehousing’s future?

November 14, 2006

Transportation/warehousing’s future?

People who regularly read my newspaper know that I write a semi-regular column about Peak Oil. Experts who are bearish on the issue, that is, predict worldwide oil production to be peaking before the end of this decade, say that if oil goes much over $100/bbl, the whole mode of business of folks like Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart’s myriad suppliers, will change drastically.

The end result? Just in time manufacture, with component assembly of many subassemblies of, say, electronic items, being done in a place like Taiwan and final assembly in China, will become more and more untenable.

And that, then, in turn, will affect how much in the way of warehousing/transportation hub facilities our country needs.

Do we face a possibility of warehouse overbuilding?

Possibly.

There are other warehousing centers being built in our area besides Argent/ProLogis and the to-be-built, at some day, Allen Group site, we already have two other such sites under development.

One is in Dallas, on Hampton Road just north of the DeSoto city limits. It’s first building is about the same size as Argent’s first building, and is a month or so ahead of its construction timetable.

The second is on Danieldale Road at I-35, on the DeSoto side, in an area where Dallas city limits dips to the south of Danieldale. Work there is a month or two behind Argent.

But, if both of those are built out, and further development happens just west of Hampton Road in South Dallas, in the area behind the Wheatland Road car dealers, how much need will there be for The Allen Group to go to full buildout?

No comments: