Test Front-Load Warehouses Before You Tie Up the Land
Start from front-load warehouses in two flexible building types, a smaller one and a larger one, each with a truck court on the front and a truck loop around the site. You see the building area and dock count before you sign an LOI.
Will a Front-Load Warehouse Fit My Site?
TestFit is real estate feasibility software that generates site plans on your parcel and calculates what they yield. For front-load warehouses, the answer comes down to three things that are hard to judge from a parcel map.
How much fits, and in what mix
Lot shape, setbacks and frontage decide how much front-load building the parcel carries, and how much of it lands in large buildings versus small ones.
Docks on one wall only
Every dock door sits on the front wall facing the truck court. As each building stretches or shrinks, its dock count moves with it.
The loop takes its share
A truck loop around the site keeps trailers moving and off the car parking, but on a smaller parcel it competes directly with building area.
From Your Parcel to a Deal You Can Underwrite
Start from the front-load warehouses your team would build, tune them to your standards, and finish with one model for the site, plan, tabulation and pro forma.
Your parcel and its constraints
- Site boundary: pick the parcel from built-in parcel data with current owner info, draw it, enter metes and bounds, or import a KML/KMZ file
- Setbacks and frontage: front, side and rear setbacks set to the parcel edges
- Zoning: FAR, building and impervious coverage, height limits and parking ratios, pulled in for your parcel so you don't have to dig through the zoning code
- Easements: areas the layout keeps buildings out of
- Site conditions: flood zones, wetlands and topography from Site Intelligence
Every layout starts inside your site's real constraints.
Your product, fine-tuned on the site
- Product: 1-story front-load buildings, 40 ft clear, 2 flexible building types: one 1 to 3 bays wide and one 4 to 20 bays wide
- Site layout: truck court on the front of each building, trailer and car parking, truck loop around the site
- Your edits: building sizes, docks, courts, parking and circulation
You see the building your team would propose, on your parcel.
A source of truth for the deal
- Site plan geometry: buildings, courts, parking and drives drawn to the parcel
- Tabulation for this product: building sf, dock doors, trailer and car stalls against what's required, site coverage and FAR
- Earthwork: cut and fill for the layout
- Financials: the geometry turned into development costs, revenue and returns
- Shareable results: a link or PDF report for your team, partners and other stakeholders
You know whether the deal works, with numbers to back it.
TestFit is transformational. We've shaved days off of our analysis by using the AI capabilities of this software, which allows us to make smarter decisions faster.
Front-Load Warehouse Site Planning FAQ
What is a front-load warehouse?
A distribution building with dock doors and a truck court on the front wall only. Freight moves in and out through the same dock wall.
Why two building types?
A larger type and a smaller type let the layout use land a single building size would leave empty, so tighter pockets of the parcel still carry building.
How much land does a front-load warehouse need?
Shape matters as much as acreage. The site has to fit the buildings, a truck court on the front of each, parking and the truck loop. Load your parcel in TestFit with this layout to see how much building fits.
How does a flexible building size work?
The layout holds two front-load building types that each size themselves to the land: a smaller one from 1 to 3 bays wide and a larger one from 4 to 20 bays wide. You can push any building larger after it generates.
Can I change the layout after it generates?
Yes. Start from this layout, then edit buildings, docks, courts, parking and circulation in TestFit. The site plan and yield recalculate as you go.
Find it in TestFit
Test This Layout on Your Next Industrial Site
Load your parcel and get the site plan, yield, and costs in one place.