The FM Logistic Group will develop a next-generation cross-docking platform in Madrid to facilitate sustainable urban distribution

The FM Logistic Group, through its company CITYlogin, a sustainable urban distribution company. It will develop a cross-docking platform of the last generation in the polygon of La Atalayuela, in Villa de Vallecas. With the aim of facilitating sustainable urban distribution of goods.

This project- called Hi Life– has won an Reinventing Cities contest. An initiative created by C40, the network of cities working to combat climate change. Madrid participates in this network along with Cape Town, Chicago, Dubai, Milan, Montreal, Reykjavik, Rome and Singapore. 

The FM Logistic and CITYlogin initiative proposes a change in the methodology of city logistics with more environmentally friendly alternatives.

The La Atayuela immediate landscape is formed by hills of anthropic origin and is the result of decades of waste accumulation. This is a clear example of how, without good management, it can become a very serious problem for the environment’’, says Leire Armendariz, Technical Director of FM Logistic. 

Hi Life considers this problem as an opportunity, creating from the excavated land from the excavated land from the construction site. In addition to a regenerating and fertile nature, a nature of 9.000 m2 of groves, wetlands, landscape areas and rainwater ponds will be created. This will reproduce six of the natural ecosystems protected and recognised as belonging to this area by the community Habitats Directive, with species adapted to the site and which collaborate with each other, requiring little maintenance. 

This natural infrastructure will be the support of the business ecosystem, which will drive the incipient development of La Atalayuela towards its more sustainable side. It will also be determined by the requirements of C40 and by the need of the programme, which will revolve around two buildings for logistics activity. 

The first building will have large cross-docking spaces. To develop CITYlogin urban logistics (transfer of goods between vehicles without intermediate storage) and offices. The second building will be used for sorting goods. 

Moreover, the two buildings will be built to LEED environmental standards, with glass facades and green roofs that are very different from the opaque enclosures typical of industrial buildings. The roof of both buildings will also house a photovoltaic energy production plant of almost 13,000 m2. 

This use of space frees up sufficient surface area to locate the aforementioned green areas. Hi Life is supporting social integration in the southern area of plot B and sustainable mobility with a hydropower plant on the northern side of the same plot.

Indeed, one of the highlights of this project is the production of green hydrogen from self-produced photovoltaic electricity and reused water from the activity of both plots. It will be dispensed in plot B both to CITYlogin vans and forklifts, as well as to external vehicles.

Mariano Fuentes, delegate of the Urban Development Department, was in charge of announcing the winners. Fuentes underlined that all the projects stand out for their good integration with their surroundings and for generating new opportunities for the city. Julia López Ventura, representative of C40 in Europe, pointed out the importance of this initiative in contributing to decarbonisation.