A 475,000-square-foot warehouse in Hemel Hempstead vacated by US e-commerce giant Amazon last year has been quickly relet to food wholesaler Brakes.
Parent company Sysco will spend the next 18 months adapting the former Amazon site in Hemel Hempstead to make it suitable for foodservice operations including introduction of frozen and chilled areas and improving sustainability across the site, and it intends to spend £100 million. It would be its largest depot in Europe.
Paul Nieduszynski, chief executive of Sysco GB, said: “The new Sysco London depot is a next generation site, unlike anything we’ve seen before. As the largest Sysco site in Europe, it will offer a more comprehensive service to independent customers in London and the surrounding areas. It takes foodservice wholesale in Britain to an entirely new level.
“For the first time, we will be able to introduce the full suite of technology that benefits Sysco customers in the United States. The size of the depot will also allow us to be more responsive to customer demand by holding a full range of products on the edge of Greater London. The combination of scale, cutting-edge technology, range and service will set a new standard for foodservice wholesale in the UK.”
The warehouse and site has a chequered history. The original Mammoth development on the site by Blackstone and Astral – subsequently Prologis – opened in 2005 only to be severely damaged three weeks later by the nearby Buncefield oil depot explosion and fire.
The site lay empty until building and civil engineering contractor Murphy bought it in 2009. It was thought to be planning to develop the site for its own occupation. However, it revamped and leased the warehouse for 10 years from 2012 to Amazon for use for the storage of machinery and fulfilment kit as well distribution. Murphy still owns the building.
Blackstone is thought to have received substantial damages from oil group Total, which, with co-defendants Chevron and Hertfordshire Oil Storage, admitted that the scale of the blast could have been foreseeable.
Retailer Superdrug was believed to have shortlisted the Mammoth scheme before the explosion while around 745 other businesses were affected by the blast, the financial impact of which was estimated at up to £1 billion.
In January 2023 Amazon confirmed it would shut three warehouses in the UK, while confirming it planned to open two new centres, in Peddimore in the West Midlands and Stockton-on-Tees, over the next three years. The properties it has closed include the Hemel Hempstead one, as well as Balby Carr Bank in Doncaster and Faulds Park in Gourock,. They total around 1.2 million square feet, according to CoStar data, a fraction of the 25 million square feet it had committed to since the onset of the pandemic.
At the same time Amazon said it was increasing the number of jobs it plans to cut globally from 10,000 to more than 18,000, the largest number in the firm's history, in an attempt to reduce costs.
The group continually reviews its portfolio however and has been shutting older warehouses in favour of "state of the art" robotic facilities.
CBRE, Gordons and Nova Building Consultancy acted for Murphy. DTRE, Stevens & Bolton & Knight Webb acted for Brake Bros, a subsidiary of Sysco.
This story was updated on 20 February to add agents and details of Sysco's plans.