Amazon's rent-not-own strategy has been a boon to developers, but the boom may be coming to an end

The Amazon sort centre known as YUL9 is a model of the engineering and tech-enabled logistics typical of the company. On roughly 6.5 hectares of former farmland west of Montreal, about 500 workers and a fleet of Amazon robots perform the relentless, freakishly efficient dance that has helped make the e-commerce multinational one of the most successful companies the world has ever seen.

Yet while it is a sizable link in Amazon’s distribution chain, Amazon itself doesn’t own YUL9. In fact, Amazon doesn’t own any of the real estate that houses its Quebec operations. Instead, the company leases its properties by way of sometimes-complicated, often-octopussian, always-secretive third-party agreements.

Talking Point

Amazon doesn’t actually own many of the facilities that have made it one of the largest companies in the world. In Quebec, the company’s rent-not-own strategy hasn’t only jolted awake the province’s long-dormant industrial real estate market, but it has also improved the bottom lines of various REITs, property managers, public pension funds and construction firms.