Investment company abrdn, through its AIPUT (Airport Industrial Property Unit Trust) fund, has completed the second and final phase of construction of its dnata City East warehouse campus, located opposite Heathrow’s Cargo Terminal.

The 360,000sq ft warehouse campus has been specifically designed to meet the operational requirements of dnata, the largest independent cargo handler serving Heathrow.

The new 117,000sq ft warehouse adds to the earlier 242,000sq ft warehouse building – also built by AIPUT and pre-let to dnata – which has been operational since late 2019, handling import and export throughput for Virgin Atlantic Cargo and Delta Cargo at the airport.

“The completion of Phase II of dnata City East marks a major step forward in our successful ongoing relationship with AIPUT, which has delivered a world-leading air cargo warehouse destination at the UK’s premier gateway airport,” said dnata (UK)’s managing director Alex Doisneau.

“These two new state-of-the-art facilities serve to support and enhance our customer and operational needs in a constantly changing environment.”

Edward Amery, head of UK Logistics at abrdn, commented: “The completion of AIPUT’s dnata City East marks the culmination of a four-year project to deliver a significant milestone in our strategy to drive the growth of AIPUT’s market-leading portfolio of prime industrial assets. dnata City East sets a new quality benchmark for industrial property investment, representing one of the UK’s very best critical logistics infrastructure assets.

“We are proud that this new ‘centre of excellence’ will play a vital, long-term role in strengthening the UK’s supply chain resilience and make a positive impact at a local level for the environment and for communities.”