A $30 million cold storage facility is headed for Winton Hills, where Atlanta-based developer RL Cold plans to build a Class A refrigerated distribution center on the site of a former BASF office building. The project is expected to retain 100 existing local jobs and create 40 new positions over the next five years, with specialty food distributor Chefs' Warehouse lined up as the tenant.
The facility is being financed through a $30 million lease revenue bond issued by the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority, which owns the Winton Hills property and is aiding the project through its capital lease structure, according to Local 12 News. Under that arrangement, the Port retains title to the land and leases it back to RL Cold on a long-term basis. The former BASF office building that once stood on the property was torn down in early 2025, part of the Port Authority's broader industrial repositioning strategy for the site.
How the Port's Tax Structure Sweetens the Deal
The capital lease model the Port is using is more than a bookkeeping detail. Because the Port Authority legally retains title to the real estate while leasing it back to a developer, all project building and construction materials are exempt from state and local sales tax, according to the Port of Greater Cincinnati Development Authority. That exemption matters in Hamilton County, where the combined sales-and-use tax rate is 7.80 percent effective October 1, 2026 — a mix of Ohio's 5.75 percent base rate and a 2.05 percent county levy that ties Cincinnati for the third-highest combined rate in the state, per the Ohio Department of Taxation. Avoiding that tax on millions of dollars in construction materials represents a significant capital savings for the developer.
This isn't the Port Authority's first time deploying bonds and capital leases as an economic development tool. The agency issued $29 million in bonds in 2025 to finance apartment developments in Walnut Hills and Norwood, according to the REALTOR Alliance of Greater Cincinnati. The Winton Hills project reflects the same conduit financing approach, this time applied to industrial rather than residential development.
A Site Years in the Making
The path to this deal began well before the cold storage announcement. In July 2025, the Cincinnati Planning Commission unanimously approved the Port Authority's request to subdivide the 27.36-acre former BASF office site into two development-ready industrial parcels — one at 19.29 acres and another at 8.07 acres — each capable of hosting facilities up to 100,000 square feet, per the same filing cited by the REALTOR Alliance. That subdivision was designed to prepare the site for exactly this kind of industrial reuse, though it remains an open question whether the second parcel has secured its own tenant.
The property's history stretches back further still. It previously housed administrative offices for BASF Corporation, the German chemical manufacturer that operated regional chemical production facilities across Greater Cincinnati for decades, according to the City of Cincinnati Department of Buildings and Inspections. That office building's demolition cleared the way for the Port's industrial repositioning push in Winton Hills.
Why Chefs' Warehouse Needs the Space
Chefs' Warehouse, the national specialty food service distributor slated to lease the new facility, has deep roots in the Cincinnati market. The company established its local distribution presence in January 2013 when it acquired Queensgate Foodservice for approximately $22 million, according to a Chefs' Warehouse news release. That acquisition gave the distributor a foothold that has since grown into a broader regional operation the new Winton Hills facility would support.
The company's growth trajectory helps explain the need for more distribution capacity. Chefs' Warehouse generated $4.15 billion in net sales during fiscal year 2025, a 9.36 percent increase over the prior year, and reported second-quarter 2026 net sales of $1.17 billion, according to a company release distributed via GlobeNewswire. Headquartered in Ridgefield, Connecticut, the company distributes specialty food items and high-end proteins to more than 50,000 restaurant, hotel, country club, and catering clients across North America and the Middle East from 53 distribution centers, per the same release.
A Developer With a National Track Record
RL Cold, the developer behind the Winton Hills project, is an Atlanta-based division of RealtyLink operating through a joint venture with real estate manager BGO. The Cincinnati project fits within a broader national boom in refrigerated logistics real estate, as discussed by CommercialSearch.
