Fast 25: RISE Commercial District

Revenue growth FY 2020 to 2022: 155.2%
2022 revenue: $11.06 million

Threepeat: RISE Commercial District, which provides co-warehousing space where companies can lease space and share services, returns to the Fast 25 for the third consecutive year. President Jim Sapp said in the past year RISE has opened new locations in Cincinnati and Cleveland and added on to its sites in Noblesville, Greenwood, Castleton and Columbus, Ohio. “We’ve been complementing sites with additional warehousing where we had room and building new sites as well,” he said.

Rare service: Sapp said RISE’s success in part has been because “nobody does exactly what we do.” There are some self-storage businesses that have one building devoted to commercial use, and there are business condos in Fort Wayne, “but there’s nobody to my knowledge in the Midwest that does small to medium warehousing with security.”

Hard to start: The barrier to entry is difficult, Sapp said. You need 12 to 15 acres of land, and he said banks are tightening credit and clamping down on underwriting, making financing tougher to attain.

On the plus side: Sapp said RISE’s current locations—districts, they’re called—are staying full. In an uncertain economy, certain industries will have a harder time and may use less warehouse space. But other industries will excel, he said.

Using their knowledge: RISE has started to franchise and has new franchisees in St. Louis and Milwaukee starting construction next month. A few others—in Ohio, Kentucky and Michigan—are further along. RISE helps franchisees find their site and their builder and provides instruction about how to construct the buildings. Then RISE helps them operate the commercial district. Franchises take about 12 months to set up, and Sapp said he expects the first to be operating in 2024.•

Check out more of IBJ’s ranking of Indy’s fastest-growing companies.