Under Missouri: Why the Cave Warehouse Might Be CRE’s Best-Kept Secret

If CRE is about location, structure, and demand - then the truest opportunity might be underground. And who better to prove it than Missouri: the Cave State.

Missouri Is Leading Underground CRE

SubTropolis in Kansas City, MO

• Built in a former limestone mine, reaching up to 160 feet beneath the surface.

• It’s recognized as the world’s largest underground business complex - encompassing roughly 55 million square feet of mine space, with over 10 million square feet developed into usable commercial/industrial space since the 1960s.

• The complex supports multiple industrial categories - distribution, automotive, food & beverage, pharmaceuticals, records storage, data centers, and more.

• Utility costs take a hit: stable temperatures, natural insulation from limestone - clients report energy savings compared to traditional above-ground warehousing.

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Springfield, MO Underground

• Built in a former limestone mine (original quarry opened in 1946). Warehousing began in the 1960s while mining continued.

• Today the facility offers around 3.2 million square feet of leasable, subterranean industrial space.

• Clear-height up to 30 feet; buildings range from 50,000 to 400,000 SF; 224 dock doors; over 3 miles of lit roadway; rail sidings; direct interstate access (I-44 / US-65).

• Climate stability: ambient 62 °F year-round.

• Many of tenants are in food storage or perishables - exploiting the stable underground climate for cold-chain, food processing/distribution, and climate-sensitive goods.

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SubTropolis and Springfield Underground show that “cave CRE” isn’t a niche experiment - it’s a working, large-scale industrial class under our feet. And both demonstrate major upside to operators who think of infrastructure first.

Beyond Missouri: The National Subsurface CRE Landscape

Missouri sets the standard, but the model extends beyond. Other states show how underground real estate is being leveraged elsewhere.

Marengo Warehouse & Distribution Center in Indiana

• Built 160 ft underground in a former limestone quarry.

• Total space spans nearly 4 million square feet.

• Used for large-scale storage: e.g. the U.S. Department of Defense reportedly stores MREs there; companies store tires, and even controlled-environment agriculture (e.g. tomato corn cultivation in subterranean chambers).

Iron Mountain’s Underground Vaults in Pennsylvania

• Iron Mountain maintains a high-security underground facility in a former limestone mine near Butler, Pennsylvania. It’s long been used for clime-controlled storage of records, media, archives, and sensitive data.

• These vaults underscore that subterranean CRE isn’t just for distribution or manufacturing - it’s also a secure place for records, sensitive data, high-value goods, and any asset requiring stability, integrity, and protection.

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Why This Market Matters

• Missouri is a ground-zero proving ground. For those of us operating or investing in the Midwest, the existence of SubTropolis and Springfield Underground removes the hypothetical - cave CRE works, it’s scalable, it’s proven.

• Underground = strategic infrastructure. Stable climate, security, energy savings, resilience - these are features that compete harder than location or curb-appeal when supply chain, logistics, and industrial demand are unpredictable.

• It’s a different asset class - underpriced, underleveraged. Many CRE players still think vertical (towers) or horizontal (big-box) when they think industrial. But cavity-based infrastructure creates a third dimension: depth.

• Positioning for future scarcity. As surface land becomes costlier and zoning tighter in urban and suburban markets, vertical and now subterranean - space offers a potential hedge.

• Flexibility across use cases. From cold-chain food storage to secure vaults and archives, to defense stockpiling, underground CRE can serve diverse, often high-margin uses.

Missouri’s Hidden Infrastructure Advantage

Missouri isn’t just another CRE market - it’s a pioneer in subterranean real estate, demonstrating that deep-rock infrastructure can deliver competitive, real-world industrial value. If we pivot our lens away from height and toward depth, we unlock a latent frontier - a terrain of stable temperatures, energy resilience, security, and scalable capacity.