Rhenus will double its covered logistics space in the Padua area to 10,000 sqm, consolidating two existing warehouses into a single hub at Interporto Padova from the first quarter of 2027.

The German logistics group currently runs roughly 5,000 sqm of covered space across two sites in the northern Italian city — Corso Spagna and Via Settima Strada. Both will close gradually as operations transfer to the new facility, a phased move designed to keep service continuity for existing freight customers.

The new hub brings road transport, air and ocean freight forwarding, warehousing and specialised delivery services under one roof. That integration is the commercial point of the exercise: Rhenus wants to coordinate warehouse activity with national and international transport from a single control point, rather than split it across two buildings in the same urban area.

What goes where inside the 10,000 sqm?

The breakdown shows how Rhenus intends to balance the operation:

• 3,500 sqm for road transport operations
• 3,000 sqm of Transport Related Warehousing, holding approximately 3,000 pallets
• 2,000 sqm dedicated to Special Delivery services
• 500 sqm for dangerous goods handled under ADR requirements

The site adds more than 30 loading bays, office space and charging facilities for electric forklifts — a small detail, but one that signals the materials-handling fleet will run electric from day one rather than converting later.

Why Interporto Padova matters commercially

Location is doing heavy lifting here. Interporto Padova sits on the Mediterranean and Baltic-Adriatic core transport corridors, the two routes that carry the bulk of east-west and north-south freight across northern Italy. The hub has direct road access via the A4 and A13 motorways and rail connections, plus links to Venice and Verona airports for the airfreight side of the forwarding book.

For a forwarder, that geography cuts drayage time and gives one address for road, sea and air consolidation. For Rhenus itself, the doubling of covered space creates headroom — the company says the site provides additional space for future operations, which reads as an option on volume growth in north-eastern Italy rather than a simple like-for-like relocation.

Guglielmo Davide Tassone, Managing Director of Rhenus Overland Italy, said: "With this hub, we are building on an established presence in the area and bringing different areas of expertise from the Rhenus Group under one roof."

What does this change for shippers?

In the short term, very little. The relocation starts in Q1 2027 and will be gradual, so customers of the Corso Spagna and Via Settima Strada sites should see service continue without interruption during the transition. The ADR-capable space — 500 sqm — is new capacity, which matters for chemical and industrial shippers who need compliant dangerous-goods handling in the region.

Longer term, the payoff is consolidation speed. One site handling 3,000 pallets, cross-dock road operations and forwarding means fewer handoffs between Rhenus business units, and the company expects the integrated hub to improve how it manages freight flows across domestic and international lanes.

The expansion also fits a broader pattern: 3PLs are concentrating capacity at intermodal nodes in northern Italy's freight belt, where corridor access and rail links justify bigger single facilities over dispersed urban warehouses. Rhenus has now staked its Padua position at 10,000 sqm, with room to grow, from 2027.