The Hudson Valley landscape could soon be dotted with $440 million worth of new warehouses and distribution centers if plans by the RDM Group Inc. of Mahwah, New Jersey, come to fruition.
“We”™re focused exclusively on developing industrial warehousing properties,” Isaac Neuman, the real estate specialist who manages RDM”™s development activities, told the Business Journal. “RDM likes raw land deals and we see opportunities to add value.”
RDM, which is based on the name “Real Deal Management,” has been active recently in putting together contracts for land purchases in Orange County and seeking development approvals from municipalities.
It has plans that would bring new developments to Goshen, Wallkill, Middletown, Chester, Wawayanda and Hamptonburgh. RDM would custom-build for users or build on speculation and then offer spaces for lease.
RDM isn”™t the only entity interested in building warehouses and distribution centers in the county. NAI Platform, Matrix Development Group, City View Commercial, Bluewater Property Group and Weiss Realty are among those who have been active in proposing or undertaking warehouse construction in Orange.
RDM has been working on plans that could create 14 warehouses totaling 4 million square feet with an estimated value of $440 million, according to Neuman’s calculations.
“We have some plans for potential additional properties that we”™re still investigating,” Neuman said. “We”™re always interested in finding other space that works for us. We do a lot of vetting of sites. To get to those 14 sites and 4 million square feet of development, we have to go through several sites to get the right locations.”
Neuman said when the company began seeking approvals for a project on Dolsontown Road in the town of Wawayanda, it found that the town’s desire was to concentrate industrial activities in that area. Because of RDM”™s proposal and proposals from other developers, the town decided that an extensive environmental review was in order, especially in view of the heavy volume of truck traffic that was expected.
“We continued to then purchase or obtain contracts to purchase other sites on both sides of Dolsontown Road,” Neuman said. “We”™re going to break ground next month on our first project at 1081 Dolsontown Road and then continue to develop that street to be the Wawayanda Industrial Park,” Neuman said.
He said that the municipalities his firm has dealt with in Orange County have been pro-business and understand that development benefits them as well as those behind the projects.
”We”™ve been happy to work with the townships that we have our developments in,” Neuman said. “Sometimes we”™ll pre-lease it before we have the four walls up. I”™d say 50% of our sites are taken by the time we”™re in the middle of the approval stage. The other 50% are speculative.”
Neuman said the Covid-19 pandemic has helped drive people to use e-commerce platforms, resulting in increased online retailing and creating a need for additional warehousing and last-mile distribution centers.
“RDM has been focused on industrial and was before the market started to become hot. RDM intends to stay in that market,” Neuman said. “We”™re open to any development in the surrounding counties. We have an appetite right now to get into larger deals and possibly industrial parks in the future to make space available for smaller users.”
Neuman said that one feature that attracted the company to Orange County was New York Stewart International Airport. He said that RDM’s attention was drawn to the airport back in May of 2019 when Kalitta Air, an air cargo service operating about 30 Boeing 747 and 767 freighters, announced it was beginning operations at Stewart instead of John F. Kennedy International.
Kalitta”™s decision was seen as more evidence that Orange County was growing as a warehousing and distribution mecca.
Neuman also pointed to the New York State Thruway, I-84 and Route 17, for which widening plans have been on the drawing boards for several years, as important trucking routes.
“RDM was started about seven years ago. We have central and northern New Jersey and Pennsylvania developments going active right now and we”™re looking to take on other locations and become a little more national in our growth,” Neuman said.
