MINNEAPOLIS — Zenith Industrial Outdoor Storage (IOS) has completed a cold storage build-to-suit for Kemps, a farmer-owned brand of Dairy Farmers of America. Kemps signed a 15-year lease for the property in Minneapolis. Zenith acquired the 11-acre site, formerly home to a heavy industrial metal recycling business, in June 2022. In conjunction with Bainey & Co. as general contractor, Zenith converted the property into a 40,000-square-foot cold storage and dairy distribution hub.
Kemps traces its Minneapolis roots back to 1914, when William Kemps and Walter Lathrop founded the Lathrop-Kemps Ice Cream Co. at 222 Fifth St. Now based in St. Paul, Kemps maintains approximately 1,000 employees and is a producer of milk and other dairy products. The company currently operates seven manufacturing facilities in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Indiana. The new cold storage distribution site will also support the company’s bottling facility, located roughly one mile away.
CBRE is currently marketing the southern parcel of the site for sale. It includes a 22,000-square-foot warehouse on the remaining 3 acres of land.