Cold Storage: Feeding Cities More Sustainably

Reimagining Food Infrastructure for Growing Cities

The systems that feed our cities are under growing pressure.

Decades of underinvestment in food distribution infrastructure have left many cold storage and logistics facilities aging, inefficient, and increasingly strained by population growth, supply chain volatility, and rising sustainability demands.

At the same time, communities are demanding greater food security, resiliency, and environmental responsibility.

Today, cities are facing:

• Aging cold storage facilities
• Growing urban populations
• Rising energy costs
• Supply chain disruptions
• Food insecurity concerns
• Increasing sustainability requirements

Modern cold chain infrastructure is becoming essential to food security, public health, and urban resiliency.

Food infrastructure is no longer simply industrial real estate—it is civic infrastructure essential to public health, urban resiliency, and economic stability.

As cities grow denser and distribution networks become more complex, the future of cold storage and food logistics will require smarter, cleaner, and more resilient infrastructure systems.

The Design Opportunity

Next-generation cold storage facilities must operate as highly integrated food distribution ecosystems.

Modern food infrastructure increasingly requires:

• Greater automation
• Electrified logistics fleets
• Renewable energy integration
• Flexible tenant environments
• Human-centered workplace environments supporting safety, wellness, and operational performance
• Multi-modal transportation access
• Greater operational redundancy
• Faster product throughput
• Sustainable building systems

As cold chain logistics infrastructure expands into dense urban and mixed-use environments, architecture plays an increasingly important role in operational performance, sustainability, workforce wellness, and long-term asset value.

The future of food infrastructure must reduce waste, improve efficiency, strengthen food access, and lower environmental impact while supporting the evolving needs of cities and communities.

The most successful food infrastructure projects will integrate logistics, energy, workforce, transportation, and public health into a more resilient urban ecosystem.

Designing the Future of Urban Food Systems

KSS Architects is currently working on transformative cold storage and food distribution projects that are reshaping the future of urban food systems, including Hunts Point Produce Market and Real Cold East Hanover.

KSS is helping Aurora Contractors and Primus Builders lead the redevelopment vision for Hunts Point Produce Market—one of the most important food distribution hubs in the United States and the source of nearly 60% of New York City’s produce.

Located in the heart of New York City, the proposal reimagines Hunts Point as a next-generation food distribution ecosystem integrating logistics, infrastructure, energy, mobility, and resiliency at metropolitan scale.

The redevelopment includes:

• A 77-acre master plan
• 32,300 pallet positions
• 174 inbound docks
• 173 outbound docks
• Rail integration
• EV infrastructure
• 3 MW of renewable energy production

KSS is also serving as design architect for Real Cold East Hanover, a modernized cold storage facility providing 16 million cubic feet of temperature-controlled storage serving some of the most densely populated urban regions in the United States.

Designed with high-performance insulation systems, integrated solar arrays, and highly optimized cold chain operations, the facility rethinks how food infrastructure can operate more efficiently, sustainably, and elegantly at scale.

We believe the future of food infrastructure must be faster, cleaner, healthier, and more resilient.

Food infrastructure is civic infrastructure.