IN Brief:
- AUKLogis has leased the 103,679 sq ft Unit 2 at Griffen Park, Desford.
- The warehouse provides 96,455 sq ft of storage, eight loading doors, a 50-metre yard, and 18 HGV spaces.
- The site gives the cross-border operator a dedicated UK node for cargo moving between China, Europe, and North America.
AUKLogis has secured its first dedicated UK warehouse, taking 103,679 sq ft at Griffen Park in Leicestershire as the cross-border operator establishes a permanent domestic base for warehousing and distribution.
The company has leased Unit 2 at the Desford logistics scheme, which is owned by Jingdong Property following its acquisition of two completed buildings and an adjacent development plot earlier this year.
AUKLogis UK was incorporated on 15 January 2026 and lists Unit 2, Griffen Park, as its registered office. Its Companies House classification covers the operation of warehousing and storage facilities for land transport activities.
The facility contains 96,455 sq ft of warehouse space with 12.5-metre eaves, alongside 7,234 sq ft of two-storey offices. It has eight dock and level-access doors, a 50-metre service yard, and parking for 18 HGVs.
AUKLogis specialises in cross-border supply-chain and warehousing services for medium and higher-value goods moving from China into Europe and North America. Establishing a UK warehouse changes that operating model by adding inventory capacity inside the destination market rather than relying solely on international transport and third-party storage.
Domestic inventory can separate the long international lead time from the final customer order. Containers or consolidated freight can be imported in larger batches, held at the warehouse, and released into the UK transport network as demand develops rather than requiring every shipment to remain tied to its original overseas movement.
That structure requires more working capital because stock is held closer to the customer, but it can improve control over delivery timing, returns, order consolidation, and replenishment. The trade-off becomes more attractive for higher-value goods where service reliability and careful handling carry greater commercial weight than the lowest possible storage cost.
The East Midlands remains one of the UK’s most established distribution locations because it provides access to several major motorway corridors without the property costs associated with parts of London and the South East. That position allows operators to reach large population and industrial centres while remaining close to the country’s wider national warehouse network.
Unit 2 is large enough to support a meaningful regional operation without carrying the scale or fixed cost of the largest national fulfilment centres. The loading-door configuration, HGV parking, and 50-metre yard indicate a building intended for regular inbound and outbound vehicle movements rather than low-intensity storage.
The property also carries BREEAM Excellent and EPC A ratings. EV charging infrastructure is installed, while the building has been designed with provision for rooftop solar photovoltaics, giving the occupier greater scope to manage warehouse energy consumption as the operation develops.
Those characteristics increasingly form part of warehouse-selection decisions. Distribution buildings can remain in use for decades, and taking older, energy-intensive space can leave an occupier exposed to rising electricity costs, retrofit spending, or tightening customer requirements around operational emissions.
The relationship with Jingdong Property gives the location additional expansion potential. The landlord acquired Units 1 and 2 together with a design-and-build plot capable of accommodating up to approximately 680,000 sq ft of further warehousing.
That does not guarantee AUKLogis will expand into the additional land, but it means substantial capacity could be developed at the same logistics park if the wider occupier base or the company’s own throughput grows. Expansion within an established site is generally simpler operationally than creating a separate warehouse network from scratch.
The new facility also reflects the gradual shift by Chinese ecommerce and logistics groups towards holding more infrastructure inside destination markets. Direct international fulfilment remains useful for some product categories, but customs uncertainty, variable shipping lead times, returns, and changes to low-value import regimes can make local inventory more attractive.
For UK customers, the relevant measure will be service rather than ownership structure. A domestic warehouse has to connect effectively with customs brokers, trunk carriers, parcel and pallet networks, and local transport providers if the theoretical advantage of holding stock closer to market is to translate into faster and more predictable delivery.
AUKLogis will also need sufficient throughput to make the site economical. Property commitments, labour, equipment, systems, utilities, and transport contracts create fixed costs that have to be spread across enough stored and handled volume.
The Desford lease gives the company the physical platform to build that volume. It now has a registered UK operating base, defined warehouse capacity, and the vehicle infrastructure required to receive international cargo and feed it into domestic distribution.
The next useful measure will be how quickly the building fills and how much cross-border freight it attracts. Taking the warehouse establishes AUKLogis in the UK logistics market; sustained throughput will determine whether it becomes a genuine network node rather than simply the group’s first British property commitment.
