Warehouse Design & Feasibility — King County

Five checks to screen a site quickly:

Entitlement fit. Confirm warehouse/distribution is allowed by right. Note overlays (shoreline, airport, TOD), critical areas, and any conditional/variance paths. If yield relies on discretionary relief, consider passing or revising assumptions.

Throughput geometry. Test 53’ truck paths, dock counts, trailer storage, and separated employee/visitor circulation. If circulation needs “heroic” maneuvers, costs and incident risk rise.

Utilities. Verify available water, sewer, storm, and power. Flag off-site upgrades, fees, and lead times.

Dirt & drainage. Order a geotech report early; assess liquefaction/soft soils, infiltration feasibility, detention volume, and water-quality treatment. Stormwater often sets the site plan footprint.

Pre-application. A pre-app meeting lets the City/County react before full design spend. Use it to confirm reviewers, required permits, and any studies (traffic, wetlands, floodplain, critical areas).

Feasibility Contents

Land Use & Code Path

• Allowances & limits: uses, height, coverage, setbacks, screening, frontage work.

• Known triggers: SEPA, wetlands/buffers, floodplain, steep slopes, traffic concurrency, frontage obligations.

• Decision: what is buildable as-of-right vs. what depends on discretionary approvals.

Site & Civil Concepts

• Test fits comparing single-tenant vs. multi-tenant; single-loaded vs. cross-dock.

• Fire access, hydrant spacing, apparatus turn templates.

• Preliminary stormwater concept (detention vs. infiltration, WQ treatment) with placeholder volumes and land-take.

Utilities & Cost Signals

• Written capacity confirmations where possible.

• Rough-order costs for on/off-site work and connection fees.

• Power availability and lead times flagged as schedule risks.

Market & Exit Assumptions

• Submarket lease rates, TI/LC norms, absorption expectations.

• Exit cap sensitivity and yield-on-cost ranges.

Financial Model & Sensitivities

• Hard/soft costs with contingency bands tied to risk (soils, utilities, off-sites).

• Schedule-driven interest carry.

• Base / Optimized / Stress scenarios to inform go/no-go decisions.

Deliverables should emphasize clear assumptions and a ranked risk register (probability × impact), not promises.

Designing for Operations (What Tenants Actually Feel)

Dock-to-floor alignment. Size door counts and spacing to likely tenant mix (3PL, assembly, cold storage). Consider knock-out panels for future doors.

Safety & speed. Separate truck, employee, and visitor flows; minimize reversing; keep fire lanes and clearances honest.

Futureproofing. Plan demising options, redundant conduit, and slab specs that handle racking and equipment changes (flatness/levelness where VNA is plausible).

Practical ESG. Daylighting, solar-ready roof structure, EV-ready conduit stubs, durable low-maintenance landscape that still screens.

Storm-led layout. Place detention/treatment first; organize buildings, yards, and parking around that constraint.

Permitting Path

Pre-application meeting(s). Bring a real site plan, turning paths, and a preliminary drainage concept to surface constraints.

Parallel due diligence. Run geotech, environmental desktop, and utility coordination before deep design spend.

SEPA/Critical areas (if applicable). Clarify study scope and public comment windows; reflect in schedule and carry.

Staged submittals. Consider advancing site/civil while building plans iterate; track dependencies explicitly.

Comment management. Maintain a live log, batch responses, and focus first on cost-moving items.