Ocado snaps up Panattoni’s Luton shed as next CFC

Online grocer Ocado has taken Panattoni’s 346,132ft2 speculatively developed Luton346 warehouse at Panattoni Park Luton as its next Customer Fulfilment Centre.

It has secured the space, on the two-unit scheme, on a 20-year lease at a rent believed to be just shy of the £9.75 per ft2 quoting rent. The investment is already out in the market place.

The state-of-the-art warehouse is positioned directly at Junction 11 of the M1 motorway and benefits from 15m clear internal height, 50kn/m2 floor loading, 15% roof lights, a 2.5MVA power supply, 38 dock and eight level access loading doors, 43 HGV parking spaces, 319 car parking spaces, loading on two elevations and well specified two storey offices totalling approx 12,739 ft2.

Joint letting agents are Adroit Real Estate, M1 Agency and Savills

Earlier this year Logistics Manager reported that planned to open 56 customer fulfilment centres (CFC) following strong growth in the first half of 2021.

In the first half of 2021 the Ocado Group opened three CFCs these include the first “mini” CFC in Bristol, UK and the first CFCs in the US for Kroger, in Monroe, Ohio, and Groveland, Florida.

The company said that: “The momentum of CFC openings is building. 56 CFCs are committed and 15 are currently under construction outside the UK. We expect to open a total of 5 CFCs in FY21 and 9 in FY22.”

The company already has CFC 3; a rebuild following a fire in Andover) and CFC 6 in Purfleet that will go live in 3Q and 4Q, respectively, bringing a further 145.000 orders per week of growth capacity at maturity.

There is also CFC in Bicester, which is on track for launch in 2022.