Scaling up to success for industrial tenants and owners

The Challenge

As Adler Industrial shifted into ground-up development, launched its own general contracting company, and expanded its pipeline, the systems that supported a smaller, more linear business began to break down. Project data was difficult to access, workflows lacked consistency and the company relied on institutional knowledge to manage risk. With more projects running concurrently across markets, that approach made it harder to control costs, timing and decision-making at the portfolio level.

The Solution

Adler implemented Procore to create a consistent operating system across development and construction. By centralizing project data and standardizing workflows, Procore established a single source of truth from preconstruction through closeout. That visibility allows teams to compare projects, identify trends and make informed decisions earlier, helping Adler better manage risk and scale its portfolio.

The Results

• Improved portfolio visibility with a single source of truth across all projects
• Helped reduce risk by standardizing workflows instead of relying on institutional knowledge
• Helped to accelerate decision-making with real-time access to cost and project data
• Enabled concurrent project execution while maintaining alignment across teams
• Strengthened forecasting by using historical data to guide future investments

A shift in strategy reveals a gap

Adler Industrial didn’t always build this way.

For years, the company focused on development of value-add opportunities, buying and re-positioning existing buildings. After purchasing a large portfolio of industrial buildings and un-developed land in 2019, the pace and complexity of the work changed almost overnight.  Adler decided to bring leasing, construction, development and property management all in-house, so they could control the entire development and stabilization process for ground-up industrial projects. 

“The file structure we had was set up for a different business strategy,” said Will Goede, VP of Development, who was named a 2025 Idaho Business Review Accomplished Under 40 Honoree for Excellence in Real Estate Development. “We had to figure out how to reorganize it just so we could find our own data.”

Projects were getting bigger, and to keep up, Adler was often designing, bidding and constructing at the same time. That approach worked — as long as the team stayed small and consistent.

“When you build one to two buildings at a time and use the same design team and subs, you can rely on people to manage risk because they know the ‘Adler way’ of doing things,” Goede said. “When you’re building five to six buildings at a time in multiple states, you can’t rely on people knowing the history anymore. You need a process to manage that risk.”

Without that process, even basic questions slowed things down. “Prior to Procore, our project managers and I were constantly trying to figure out what is the most current drawing, what did we bid to and what are we comparing change orders against,” Goede said.

The result wasn’t just wasted time. It was a growing risk that the team could lose control as the portfolio expanded.

Putting a backbone under the business

Adler wasn’t looking for another point solution. It needed a way to run development and construction in a consistent, repeatable way. “Procore has really become the backbone of how we move projects from concept through stabilization while keeping everyone informed every step of the way,” Goede said. “Instead of relying on institutional knowledge sitting in someone's head or buried in email chains, we've standardized our workflows so that every team member, from pre-construction to closeout, is working from the same source of truth.”

“That consistency that Procore provides is what lets us build more efficiently, with fewer surprises, which ultimately results in lower rents for our tenants and better returns for our investors,” he added.

As the number of active projects grows, that shared source of truth becomes the guardrail that keeps work on track. With a clearer, more consistent view of each job, the development team can step in earlier, while there’s still room to make meaningful changes.

“Procore makes sure we have all the reliable data to make good decisions,” Goede said.

The impact shows up most clearly around costs and timing. “In industrial development, there’s only so many variations of a concrete box,” Goede said. “We look at trends. Having one source of truth for final data helps us streamline things.” Instead of reacting after overruns hit the books, the software helps Adler to compare projects side by side, see where patterns are emerging, and adjust before those trends turn into problems.

Turning financials into a forward-looking tool

Before Procore, the numbers often lagged behind what was actually happening on site. “Traditionally, financials felt like a rear-view mirror exercise — recording what happened after the fact,” said Josh Elliott, Controller. “Now, because costs are recorded accurately and immediately, we know where our budget stands at any given moment. There’s no lag or waiting for updated spreadsheets.”

That timeliness changes the role of the finance team. Instead of simply reporting on what happened, they’re able to use live cost data to shape what happens next. “Having the cost data from the last project helps us predict the future and come up with trends for construction pricing and rents next year,” Goede said.

On build-to-suit work, that same visibility becomes a service to tenants. “The tenant wants to know as soon as possible what their final rent is going to be,” Goede said. “Being able to accurately estimate the final cost along the way is valuable for their forecasting.”

Standardization that supports speed

Rapid growth brings its own kind of pressure. Adler Industrial, LLC — a fast-growing industrial real estate developer — was ranked the #6 fastest-growing company in Idaho on the 2024 Peak 43 list, a program created by BoiseDev to recognize top Idaho companies. In many ways, doing more work is the easy part. The real trick is doing it the same way, to the same standard, across locations and teams. With several projects underway at once, each with its own mix of partners, it becomes easy for habits and practices to diverge. Procore gives Adler a way to keep the operation aligned.

“Standardization and speed feel like opposites, but Procore makes them compatible,” said Dylan Morrow, Project Manager. “When every project uses the same templates and cost codes, you’re not reinventing the wheel.” That helps make it faster to onboard new people, plug them into existing processes and maintain discipline as the organization scales.

It also cuts down on the administrative lift required to support that growth. “Our people are our strength, but people have limits,” Elliott said. “Without Procore, we would need twice the staff to track half as much data. Procore automates the documentation layer so our people can focus on decision-making and relationships rather than just data entry.”

From individual projects to a learning portfolio

As Adler adds more buildings to its pipeline, the data behind those projects becomes more useful. Each job feeds into the next, giving the team a clearer sense of where costs are heading and how to structure future projects.

“Having the cost data from the last project helps us predict the future and come up with trends for construction pricing and rents next year,” Goede said.

And when construction is completed, Procore makes it easy to hand over the historical project data to Adler’s property managers, or to outside owners, setting the stage for success before tenants even arrive.

“With Procore, our property management team can always see how a certain thing was built, and we can offer that same transparency to our outside owners,” said Elliot. “It’s a wealth of knowledge that makes a huge difference for them.”