Bain Capital has formed a joint venture with Barber Partners, a Dallas-based commercial real estate developer, to develop as many as 15 cold storage warehouses valued at $500M.

The partners said the new facilities, which will carry the Chill Storage brand, a division of BP Industrial, will capitalize on increased demand for cold storage, a subset of the booming industrial asset class.

“There is no question that there is an enormous need for new, modern cold storage facilities — even before Covid the consumption of prepared and frozen meals was rapidly on the rise,” Barber Partners Chairman Patrick Barber said in a statement.

The JV's first project will be a speculative freezer/cooler facility in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. Located on about 34 acres, the 302K SF property will feature a 50-foot clear height. Construction is slated to begin early this summer, with additional sites nationwide also getting underway this year.

Cold storage has been a growing subsector for years, used primarily to extend the life of high-demand products, such as fresh agricultural products, seafood, chemicals and pharmaceutical products.

Construction in the subsector is projected to reach $18.6B by 2027, an increase of 14% each year, JLL reports, citing Emergen Research data. There will be obstacles to developing new facilities, JLL notes, including the rising costs of raw materials, a lack of building supplies and the global steel shortage.

Bain Capital is among many private equity firms with capital to spend on real estate. In December, it closed its second real estate fund at $3B, nearly double its initial target.