SeamonWhiteside: industrial construction soars

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Demand for next-day delivery, exacerbated by pandemic-related efforts to onshore, is driving a huge growth in the industrial construction business for one land design company working throughout the Carolinas.

SeamonWhiteside is relatively new to the industrial sector, the company said, so that accounts for some of the growth: there was simply room to grow.

Still, the company expect to design or build, or both, close to 30 million square feet of industrial buildings this year alone. In recent years the company would build about 100,000 square feet of industrial space.

“Five years ago, SeamonWhiteside began chasing opportunities to expand its industrial sector and anticipated the growing need for relocating warehousing and manufacturing back to the United States as the demand for next-day delivery became today’s standard,” SeamonWhiteside said in a news release. “This need grew exponentially during the COVID-19 pandemic when people relied on next-day delivery as a means of life.”

The rapid growth is not limited to the company, according to William O’Neal, professional engineer and vice president of SeamonWhiteside.

“This is not only a change for SeamonWhiteside but a change for South Carolina as a whole,” O’Neal said in a news release. “We have never seen this volume of industrial projects in our state. It is through the innovative nature of this company and our desire to expand and diversify business sectors that we were privy to this trend. This allowed us to anticipate and prepare for these industrial projects before they even came to fruition and be invested in this sector by the time the demand for it rose.”

Industrial projects differ from other designs and require a different skill set, relying heavily on civil engineering and less on landscape architecture, O’Neal said in the release They also need larger capital investments and staffing. Since most industrial projects are in rural areas, there is less government involvement and shorter approval times, so the team begins the execution of plans almost immediately after conception.

Headquartered in Mount Pleasant, SeamonWhiteside also has offices in Summerville, Greenville, Spartanburg and Charlotte. The firm’s services include master planning, civil engineering, landscape architecture, urban design, land development management services and permit coordination. To date, the majority of industrial projects come from their Mount Pleasant and Greenville offices including Coastal Crossroads, Ladson Industrial Park, Port 95 Business Park, Camp Hall Campus 4 and Palmetto Logistics, the release said.