STORAGE OPTIMISATION
Squeezed for space, Irish businesses are choosing to reconfigure rather than relocate
With industrial availability at just 3.6 per cent entering 2026, Galway storage supplier RackZone reports a rise in very narrow aisle racking enquiries from firms determined to get more out of the buildings they already occupy.
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rish businesses are running out of room, and good space is hard to find. With the industrial property market unusually tight, storage
supplier RackZone says a growing number of the firms coming to it have stopped hunting for bigger premises. They’re staying put instead, and squeezing more storage out of the space they’ve already got. The Ballinasloe company reports a rise in enquiries for very narrow aisle (VNA) pallet racking as businesses do the maths on reconfiguring versus relocating. The numbers explain why. Cushman &
Wakefield data shows national availability was just 3.6 per cent as 2026 began, below long-term norms, and the same analysis expects prime industrial rents to rise by a further three per cent in 2026. For a business that’s outgrowing its warehouse, that’s a tough mix: little space to rent and a steeper bill if you find it. So the question has changed. It used to be “where do we move?” Now it’s “how much more
“In a project for ProTrans, a fast- growing Irish logistics and distribution company, the RackZone team supplied and installed over 100 tonnes of high-density racking to create 5,500 pallet locations inside a confined warehouse. No extension.”
can we fit in here?” Relocation means a bigger lease, fit-out costs, downtime and the risk of disrupting customers. Reconfiguring the building you already occupy sidesteps most of that. VNA racking is one of the most effective ways to do it, cutting aisle widths from the 2.5 to 3.5 metres a standard forklift needs down to roughly 1.5 to 1.8 metres, then building upwards. The result can be 40 to 50 per cent more storage density inside the same four walls.
RackZone has the proof on the ground. In a project for ProTrans, a fast-growing Irish logistics
and distribution company, the RackZone team supplied and installed over 100 tonnes of high- density racking to create 5,500 pallet locations inside a confined warehouse. No extension. The footprint didn’t grow by a single square metre. The company designed the layout around ProTrans’ existing handling equipment and built in room to add more bays as the business expands. Ciaran Duffy, Director at RackZone, said: “A couple of years ago, a business that ran out of room would go looking for a bigger building.
36 July/August 2026 Irish Manufacturing
That’s changed. There’s very little space to move into, and relocating has become too expensive to justify for a lot of firms. So they’re asking us how much more they can fit into what they already have.”
He added: “For ProTrans we created 5,500 pallet locations without the footprint growing at all. That’s the appeal of reconfiguring. You unlock capacity you didn’t know you had, you keep trading right through it and you skip the cost and upheaval of a move.”
www.rackzone.ie www.irish-manufacturing.com
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