The cost to build a fitted-out dry warehouse in 2026 is about $90 to $150 a square foot for 25,000 to 100,000 square feet, and $240 to $350 or more for cold storage. A bare metal shell on a foundation is $24 to $45 a square foot, and Cushman & Wakefield’s 2026 core-and-shell averages are $144, $87 and $78 for small, medium and large projects. Our worked 30,000 square foot build comes to about $2.9 million to $5.0 million fitted out with docks and racking, or $1.1 million to $2.2 million as a bare storage shell, before land. Before you build, it is worth knowing how much space slow-moving stock already takes; Morsa, which publishes this guide, answers that from the company’s own numbers.
Morsa publishes this guide. Morsa is not a builder or a real estate firm and sells neither. We read every figure below on 2 November 2026: Cushman & Wakefield’s 2026 Americas Industrial Construction Cost Guide, the RSMeans warehouse model as published by Gordian, CBRE’s Q3 2026 US industrial figures, and cost guides from BuildingsGuide, Brown Integrated Logistics, Maxx Builders, Allied Steel Buildings, Terrapin Construction Group and Safe and Sound Security. Sources measure different things (a metal building package, a shell, a turnkey building), so we say which is which. The worked budget is our estimate, with the arithmetic shown.
Quick answer
Cheapest way to build: a pre-engineered metal building (PEMB). BuildingsGuide puts the turnkey shell, foundation and construction at $24 to $45 per square foot, excluding interior build-out [1].
Turnkey dry warehouse: $85 to $200 per square foot; $90 to $150 for 25,000 to 100,000 square feet (Brown Integrated Logistics, updated October 2026) [2].
Market benchmark: Cushman & Wakefield’s 2026 core-and-shell averages across 46 Americas markets are $144 per square foot for small projects, $87 for medium and $78 for large, all up 2.3% to 3.6% on 2025 [3].
Cold storage: $240 to $350 or more per square foot, against $85 to $150 for basic dry storage [2]. CBRE estimates cold storage costs two to three times as much to build [2].
Not in the building price: land, dock equipment ($12,000 to $36,000 per door installed for dry and standard docks [8]), racking ($50 to $250 per pallet position installed [11]) and soft costs (15% to 30% of the project [2][4][6]).
Lease instead: the US average industrial net asking rent was $11.16 per square foot in Q3 2026 (CBRE) [5].
Cost to build a warehouse per square foot, by building type
Building type | Cost per square foot | Source and what it covers |
|---|---|---|
Pre-engineered metal building (PEMB) | $15 to $25 build cost; $24 to $45 turnkey shell and foundation | BuildingsGuide [1]; excludes interior build-out |
PEMB, Texas design-build | $50 to $90 for the shell | Maxx Builders [6] |
Tilt-up concrete | $40 to $55 | BuildingsGuide [1] |
Tilt-wall, Texas, 100,000+ sq ft | $65 to $110 for the shell | Maxx Builders [6] |
Structural steel (weld-up) | $45 to $60; $85 to $175 in Texas | BuildingsGuide [1]; Maxx Builders [6] |
Core and shell, modern distribution | Small $144, medium $87, large $78 | Cushman & Wakefield 2026, 46 markets [3] |
Turnkey dry warehouse | $85 to $200; by size $125 to $220, $90 to $150, $70 to $110 | Brown Integrated Logistics [2] |
Automation-ready warehouse | $150 to $250, excluding the robotics | Brown Integrated Logistics [2] |
Cold storage or refrigerated | $240 to $350+ | Brown Integrated Logistics [2]; Texas $150 to $200+ (Maxx [6]) |
30,000 sq ft brick veneer model, 2019 data | $127.62 open shop, $139.76 union, including contractor and architect fees | RSMeans model page [7] |
The spread is not disagreement so much as different scopes. BuildingsGuide’s $24 to $45 turnkey figure covers the shell, foundation and construction but not the interior [1]. Maxx Builders’ $50 to $90 for a Texas PEMB covers the shell with basic systems and standard sitework [6]. Brown’s $85 to $200 is a turnkey facility, and Brown says that site work, interior build-out and soft costs are why turnkey numbers run above Cushman & Wakefield’s shell averages [2]. When you compare bids, line up the scope first and the price second.
RSMeans publishes its warehouse model free on its site with 2019 national-average data, and says so on the page: a 30,000 square foot, one-story, 24-foot-high brick veneer building on a reinforced concrete frame comes to $3,828,702.69 with open shop labor and $4,192,928.28 with union labor, of which contractor fees are 25% and architectural fees 7% [7]. Current RSMeans data sits behind its paid product. Treat the free model as a scope checklist and an older floor, not a 2026 price: Cushman & Wakefield reports steel up 17% and copper up 39% year over year in 2026 [3], and Brown cites AGC figures of 27.6% for steel mill products from September 2025 to September 2026 [2].
Size changes the price per square foot
Smaller buildings cost more per square foot because mobilization, permitting and design are spread over less floor [2][6]. BuildingsGuide’s PEMB examples show the curve at the low end [1]:
Size | Estimated PEMB cost | Per square foot |
|---|---|---|
5,000 sq ft | $120,000 | $24 |
10,000 sq ft | $230,000 | $23 |
20,000 sq ft | $450,000 | $23 |
50,000 sq ft | $1,150,000 | $23 |
Maxx Builders’ Texas shell ranges show the same pattern at the turnkey end: $80 to $150 per square foot for 10,000 to 25,000 square feet, $60 to $110 for 25,000 to 50,000, and $45 to $80 for 50,000 to 100,000 or more [6].
Cold storage
Cold storage is a different building: insulated panels, refrigeration, heavier floors and, in freezers, heated slabs. Brown puts it at $240 to $350 or more per square foot and cites CBRE that it costs two to three times as much to build as a traditional warehouse and often takes four to five months longer [2]. Docks change too: Terrapin Construction Group prices a refrigerated dock position at $34,000 to $62,000 installed and a freezer position at $55,000 to $98,000 [8].
What the building price leaves out
Land and site work
There is no national price for industrial land; it varies by market and use by orders of magnitude, so price your own site. Three published 2026 examples show the spread:
Example market | Land value | Source and what it is |
|---|---|---|
James Township, Michigan | $14,373 an acre ($0.33 a square foot) | 2026 assessor analysis; commercial and industrial sales combined for lack of industrial sales [15] |
Grand Haven Township, Michigan | $61,000 an acre, up from $57,000 in 2025 | 2026 assessor value for standard industrial land [9] |
Phoenix, 303 corridor | About $30 a land square foot (100 acres for $131 million) | A 2026 sale by First Industrial, which called it more than three times industrial land values in that market [16] |
Assessor values are tax figures, not asking prices, and the Phoenix sale was a premium deal. By our arithmetic it implies local values under about $10 a square foot, or about $436,000 an acre. A broker’s comparable sales for your own submarket are the number to use. Site work is its own line: Brown says grading and site work can take 20% to 25% of the construction budget on difficult sites [2], and Maxx puts sitework at 15% to 25% of an industrial project because of truck circulation, dock courtyards and trailer parking [6]. Terrapin sets the truck court at 130 feet deep minimum for 53-foot trailers [8].
Dock doors and levelers
Terrapin Construction Group’s 2026 installed cost per dock position (national average, a planning range rather than a bid), covering the leveler, pit, door, seal or shelter, restraint, bumpers and lighting [8]:
Dock package | Per door installed | Mid case |
|---|---|---|
Basic dry warehouse, mechanical leveler | $12,000 to $23,000 | $16,500 |
Standard distribution, hydraulic leveler | $20,000 to $36,000 | $27,700 |
High-cycle fulfillment | $34,000 to $50,000 | $41,700 |
Refrigerated, 34F to 40F | $34,000 to $62,000 | $46,000 |
Freezer or blast dock | $55,000 to $98,000 | $72,000 |
The leveler alone is about 35% of a standard position: $4,800 to $7,500 installed for a mechanical pit leveler and $9,000 to $16,000 for hydraulic [8]. Terrapin’s warning is the useful part: owners price the shell, and the dock package arrives later as a change order [8].
Racking
Racking is equipment, not building, and it is often left out of construction budgets. Standard selective pallet racking runs $50 to $250 per pallet position installed, and push-back or pallet flow $200 to $400 or more, according to Crestmont Capital’s racking financing guide (undated) [11]. The older “Rules of Thumb” pricing guide from TranSystems, reported by Modern Materials Handling, put selective rack at $50 to $75 per position and double-deep at $65 to $90 before installation [12]. Clear height decides how many positions you get: Maxx says each foot above 28 feet adds 15% to 22% pallet density with selective racking [6]. Our pallet calculator counts positions from your carton sizes, and our warehouse rack label generator prints the location labels.
Sprinklers, power and the rest of MEP
Sprinklers. New-construction wet-pipe systems run $1.50 to $3.00 per square foot, and Safe and Sound Security’s example is $30,000 to $60,000 for a 20,000 square foot warehouse [10]. Retrofits cost $2.00 to $7.00 [10]. The NFPA 13 hazard class sets the required sprinkler density, so a warehouse can cost far more to protect than an office of the same size; confirm the hazard class before you ask for quotes [10].
Mechanical, electrical and plumbing. Maxx puts MEP at 18% to 25% of a basic dry-storage warehouse and 30% to 40% for refrigerated buildings or fulfillment centers with conveyors [6]. Its warning on power: an electrical service sized to the early schematic and upsized later can cost two to three times as much mid-project [6]. Brown notes that automation-ready buildings need flat floors and more electrical capacity [2].
Forklifts and equipment. Not in any building price. See our forklift cost guide for buying, leasing and renting them.
Soft costs and contingency
Soft costs are the design, permits, legal, insurance and financing around the build. The sources put them at 15% to 25% of the project (Maxx [6]), 20% to 30% (Brown [2]) and about 30% (Allied Steel Buildings [4]). Architects run 5% to 8% of construction and engineers 1.5% to 3% (Maxx [6]); Brown gives 4% to 8% for architecture and engineering together [2]. Maxx recommends a 7% to 10% contingency and says lenders now routinely require it [6].
How long it takes
Maxx Builders’ Texas timeline: 1 to 3 months of pre-development, 2 to 4 months of design and permitting, 4 to 8 months of construction and about a month of close-out, for 6 to 12 months on standard projects and 14 to 18 months for large, complex or cold storage buildings [6]. BuildingsGuide says PEMB fabrication alone takes 4 to 16 weeks [1].
What a 30,000 square foot warehouse costs to build (estimate)
This is an estimate built only from the figures above, not a bid. Assumptions: a single-story dry warehouse of 30,000 square feet; 4 dock doors; 1,500 selective pallet positions; soft costs at 20% of hard costs for option A, which sits inside Maxx’s and Brown’s ranges [2][6]. Option A is a bare metal storage shell with no offices or heat. Option B uses Brown’s turnkey medium-warehouse range, which Brown says includes site work, interior build-out and soft costs [2]. Brown does not itemize sprinklers or docks, so we assume sprinklers are inside its range and add docks on top; ask your builder to confirm both. Land is kept out of the totals and shown separately, because it varies too much by market to put one number on it.
Line | A. Bare metal storage shell | B. Fitted-out dry warehouse |
|---|---|---|
Building | $720,000 to $1,350,000 (30,000 x $24 to $45 [1]) | $2,700,000 to $4,500,000 (30,000 x $90 to $150 [2]) |
Sprinklers | $45,000 to $90,000 (30,000 x $1.50 to $3.00 [10]) | Assumed inside Brown’s range |
Dock doors | $48,000 to $92,000 (4 x $12,000 to $23,000, basic dry [8]) | $80,000 to $144,000 (4 x $20,000 to $36,000, standard [8]) |
Soft costs | $162,600 to $306,400 (20% of $813,000 to $1,532,000) | Included per Brown |
Building total, before racking and land | $975,600 to $1,838,400 (about $33 to $61 a sq ft) | $2,780,000 to $4,644,000 (about $93 to $155 a sq ft) |
Racking | $75,000 to $375,000 (1,500 x $50 to $250 [11]) | $75,000 to $375,000 (same) |
Total before land | $1,050,600 to $2,213,400 | $2,855,000 to $5,019,000 |
Land on top, for 3 acres (our assumption: room for the building, a 130-foot truck court and parking), at the three example values above: $43,119 at James Township, $183,000 at Grand Haven, and about $1,306,800 at the roughly $10 a square foot implied for Phoenix [9][15][16].
Cross-checks. Maxx’s Texas shell range for 25,000 to 50,000 square feet, $60 to $110 [6], gives $1,800,000 to $3,300,000 for the building: above option A and overlapping the low half of option B. Cushman & Wakefield’s medium core-and-shell average of $87 [3] would be $2,610,000 before docks, racking and fit-out. The RSMeans model for the same size, $3,828,702.69 to $4,192,928.28 [7], also falls inside option B’s building line, but it uses 2019 data, so read it as an older floor rather than a 2026 price. An owner-occupied warehouse with offices, restrooms, lighting and heat should budget from option B; option A is for plain covered storage. Add a 7% to 10% contingency [6] and financing on top of either.
Build vs lease
At CBRE’s Q3 2026 US average net asking rent of $11.16 per square foot [5], leasing 30,000 square feet costs about $334,800 a year. That is a national average across all building sizes; rents for a 30,000 square foot unit in your market can differ a lot, so ask a local broker for current asking rents on units that size. Industrial asking rents in the US are usually quoted per square foot per year on a net basis; Lee & Associates, for example, reports the Inland Empire East’s Q3 2026 “average annual NNN asking rent” at $11.22 [13]. On a net lease the tenant also pays taxes, insurance and maintenance on top of rent.
A tenant buys racking either way, so leave it out of the comparison and add the land an owner has to buy. With 3 acres at the Grand Haven value of $183,000 [9], the build costs the equivalent of about 3.5 to 6.0 years of national-average rent for option A and 8.9 to 14.4 years for option B, before financing, property tax and maintenance. On expensive land the payback stretches further. Allied Steel Buildings puts annual maintenance and repair for a steel warehouse at $1.40 to $1.85 per square foot [4], or $42,000 to $55,500 a year at 30,000 square feet.
Build when | Lease when |
|---|---|
You will stay well past the build’s rent-equivalent payback (about 9 to 14 years for a fitted-out building in the example above) | You may move, grow fast or shrink before that payback |
You need a spec the market does not offer: cold rooms, heavy floors, cranes, a building tied to the plant | Standard dry space with docks fits |
Your capital is cheaper than the landlord’s return | Cash is better spent on production, inventory or people |
Local vacancy is low and rents keep rising | Vacancy is high and landlords offer concessions |
BuildingsGuide’s own buy-or-rent advice comes down to the same factors: long-run savings and land appreciation against flexibility, location certainty and financing terms [1]. CBRE reports national industrial vacancy at 6.4% in Q3 2026 [5]. A third option is to outsource the space entirely: our 3PL pricing guide prices that by the pallet and the order.
Before you build: count the space and cash your slow movers already take
A new warehouse is often a response to “we are out of room”. At many manufacturers and distributors, part of the room is taken by stock that has not moved in a year. On a normal Tuesday, the conversation goes like this:
The operations manager says the racks are full and asks for more space, or for overflow at a 3PL.
The owner asks how much of what is on the racks actually sells. Nobody knows offhand.
Someone exports the item list from the ERP to a spreadsheet, adds the last sale date and the cost, and filters for anything that has not moved in twelve months. It takes most of a day, and it is out of date by the next receipt.
Meanwhile the ERP keeps suggesting reorders for some of those same items, because their reorder points were set years ago, and nobody has asked the suppliers whether they take returns.
Our free excess and obsolete inventory tool does the spreadsheet step on an export. The harder part is acting on it.
Where Morsa fits: the slow-mover answer by text, and the next step
Morsa is not a builder, a WMS or an ERP and does not replace any of them. It is the AI COO for operations at manufacturers and distributors: an AI agent that does daily operations work inside the ERP, email, Teams and phone a team already uses.
On the same Tuesday, the owner texts Morsa: “How much cash and space is tied up in stock that hasn’t moved in a year?” Morsa answers from the company’s own ERP numbers: the value at cost, the pallets those items take where the ERP records locations or pallet counts, and the items holding the most. It names the open purchase orders and reorder suggestions that would bring more of the same stock in, and for suppliers whose return terms are not on file, it asks them. Then it proposes the next step: stop those reorders and start supplier returns. On the owner’s approval, Morsa cancels or holds the reorders in the ERP and emails each supplier from the buyer’s own mailbox to start the return, then reads the replies and tracks each one to a credit.
What stays with people: whether to build at all, which items to keep for service customers, and every purchase order change and return request that goes out. Morsa does the counting, the matching and the follow-up; the owner and the buyer keep the decisions. If the answer frees enough pallet positions, the building can wait; if it does not, you build knowing the space is needed.
Morsa starts with a pilot on one live problem, such as the slow movers in one warehouse. The pilot is free when no implementation work is needed. Otherwise there is a minimal implementation cost, refunded if the pilot shows no value. After that, the fee is a share of the value created, agreed after the pilot. There are no per-seat licences (how pricing works).
At J4S, a 120-person glass plant, Morsa went live in two days, and on-time completion of operational commitments rose from about 30% to about 75% across about 900 commitments in four weeks (J4S customer story) [14]. At JRG Automotive, Morsa caught 5 of 8 production-stopping shortages early, saving $2 million.
To see it on your own inventory, book a demo.
Verdict: what to budget for a warehouse
Your project | Budget per square foot | Main source |
|---|---|---|
Simple storage building, metal | $24 to $45 for the shell and foundation, plus docks, sprinklers and site | BuildingsGuide [1] |
Owner-occupied dry warehouse, 25,000 to 100,000 sq ft | $90 to $150 turnkey | Brown Integrated Logistics [2] |
Large distribution center, 100,000+ sq ft | $70 to $110 turnkey; $78 core and shell | Brown [2]; Cushman & Wakefield [3] |
Cold storage | $240 to $350+ | Brown, citing CBRE [2] |
Leasing instead | $11.16 a year, US average net asking rent | CBRE [5] |
Get three bids on the same scope, with docks, racking, sprinklers and electrical service written in, and an escalation clause tied to a published price index, as Brown advises for 2026 [2]. Before you sign any of them, find out how much of your current space holds stock that does not sell; if the answer is “a lot”, Morsa can show it and, on your approval, start the reorder holds and supplier returns on top of the ERP you already run.
Sources
BuildingsGuide, Cost to Build a Warehouse by Construction Method: https://www.buildingsguide.com/costs/what-does-it-cost-to-build-a-warehouse/ (read 2 November 2026)
Brown Integrated Logistics, How Much Does It Cost to Build a Warehouse in 2026? (updated October 2026): https://www.brownintegratedlogistics.com/blog/how-much-does-it-cost-to-build-a-warehouse-in-2026 (read 2 November 2026)
Cushman & Wakefield, 2026 Americas Industrial Construction Cost Guide: https://www.cushmanwakefield.com/en/united-states/insights/industrial-construction-cost-guide (read 2 November 2026)
Allied Steel Buildings, The Costs of Building a 30,000 sq ft Warehouse: https://www.alliedbuildings.com/30000-square-feet-warehouse/ (read 2 November 2026)
CBRE, Q3 2026 U.S. Industrial and Logistics Figures (October 23, 2026): https://www.cbre.com/insights/figures/q3-2026-us-industrial-and-logistics-market-report (read 2 November 2026)
Maxx Builders, How Much Does a Warehouse Cost to Build in Texas? (2026): https://www.maxxbuilders.com/cost-per-square-foot-build-warehouse-texas/ and What Does it Cost to Build an Industrial Warehouse? (last reviewed February 25, 2026): https://www.maxxbuilders.com/what-does-it-cost-to-build-an-industrial-warehouse/ (both read 2 November 2026)
RSMeans (Gordian), Construction Cost Estimates for Warehouse in National, US (2019 RSMeans data): https://www.rsmeans.com/model-pages/warehouse (read 2 November 2026)
Terrapin Construction Group, Loading Dock Equipment Cost Per Door (2026) (August 16, 2026): https://terrapincg.com/news/loading-dock-equipment-cost-per-door-2026 (read 2 November 2026)
Grand Haven Township, Michigan, Land Value Analysis for 2026 Assessments, Industrial: https://ghtmi.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/INDUSTRIAL-1.pdf (read 2 November 2026)
Safe and Sound Security, Fire Suppression System Cost Guide (2026) (updated September 28, 2026): https://getsafeandsound.com/blog/fire-suppression-system-cost/ (read 2 November 2026)
Crestmont Capital, Pallet Racking Installation Financing: The Complete Guide for Warehouse Owners: https://www.crestmontcapital.com/blog/pallet-racking-installation-financing (read 2 November 2026)
Modern Materials Handling, Pallet rack basics: Behind the backbone (February 2011): https://www.mmh.com/article/pallet_rack_basics_behind_the_backbone/equipment_report (read 2 November 2026)
Lee & Associates, 2026 Q3 Inland Empire East Industrial Market Report: https://www.lee-associates.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/2026-Q3-Inland-Empire-East-CA-Industrial.pdf (read 2 November 2026)
Morsa, J4S customer story: https://morsa.ai/customers/j4s (read 2 November 2026)
James Township, Michigan, 2026 Commercial and Industrial Vacant Land Sales Analysis: https://jamestwpmi.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/James-2026-Commercial-Industrial-Land-Value-Analysis.pdf (read 2 November 2026)
Yahoo Finance, First Industrial Realty Trust Q1 2026 earnings call coverage: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/first-industrial-realty-trust-q1-030651589.html (read 2 November 2026)
