Driftless Industrial is a local, long-term buyer of small-bay warehouse, flex, and office-warehouse buildings across the Greater New Orleans area and the Louisiana Northshore. It’s run by Harry Asnien — here’s why he buys, in his own words.
I grew up in my dad’s car shop in Madison, Wisconsin.
It was a small metal building with a gravel driveway. The kind of place where the first thing you did in winter was reach up and turn on the overhead heater, because if you didn’t, you couldn’t function in the cold. The radio switch had snapped off years before I started spending afternoons there, so the oldies station played twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year, whether anyone was listening or not.
My dad worked on cars — bodywork, mechanical repair, restoration, and the project cars and custom builds that were his real passion. He didn’t rent the building. He owned it. He also owned two more warehouses across town, full of his collection of project cars and decades of obscure Volvo parts. That was the pattern in our family. His father ran a family business in Cleveland and owned the real estate that supported it. My dad did the same in Madison. The metal building wasn’t an asset class. It was the engine of a livelihood.
I rotated tires. I swept the shop. I learned to weld when my dad and I made a cowbell out of a car bumper.
I also watched what a warehouse does for the people inside it. Nine times out of ten, a customer who pulled into that gravel driveway became a family friend, and some of them stayed in our lives for decades. The summer storms hit that tin roof loud enough to shake the building, and we sat dry inside it. The shop was a second home.
After my dad passed, the buildings sat. The work stopped. My brother Eli and I started taking inventory of what he’d left behind. My wife Mikey climbed up onto a boat parked inside one of the warehouses and shouted that she’d found three more cars over here. We added them to the list and groaned. The list ended up north of fifty.
Eli spent the next two years renovating two of those buildings. He did most of it himself, with friends and family — clearing out the cars and Volvo parts, gutting the shell, putting in new floors, framing in artist studios and a workshop space. Today, those warehouses where my dad housed his collection and passion projects are Next Wave Studios, a multimedia production space and home for a rotating residency of Madison artists. The buildings didn’t end with my dad. They started something new.
That’s why I buy warehouses.
I’m not flipping them. I’m not wholesaling them. I’m not assembling them into a fund. I’m buying small-bay industrial properties — warehouses, flex space, office-warehouses — and holding them long-term, for the same reason my dad held his, and his father held real estate in Cleveland. Because a warehouse is somebody’s life’s work, or the start of one. The cabinet maker, the HVAC contractor, the fabricator, the woodworker, the microbrewery, the coffee shop, the gym — they all need a building owned by someone who understands what they’re trying to build inside it.
I want my daughters to grow up watching small companies build and grow — the same way I did, in my dad’s shop.
If you’ve spent years inside your shop and you’re thinking about what comes next, I’d like to talk.
Track record
Twelve years. Over 100 real estate transactions.
The Gulf South is home base. Most deals have closed in Louisiana parishes — Orleans, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Washington, St. Martin — and Mississippi counties — Jackson, Pike, Clay, Oktibbeha, Harrison, Hancock. One notable closing outside the region: I sold land to the City of Grants, New Mexico, for the city’s multi-use rodeo arena.
Most transactions have been direct-from-owner — off-market, no listing — which is how I prefer to work and how I’d likely buy your warehouse.
I also run Driftless Land Co., a land flipping and subdivision business across Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. There is no fund, no syndication, and no outside capital.
I serve as treasurer of a local Mandeville nonprofit. I live in Mandeville, Louisiana with my wife Mikey and our two daughters, and I intend to stay.
What people say
“Driftless made the purchase of my property quick and easy. They explained the whole process and handled all the paperwork. I will be reaching out to them for future transactions.” — GG
“Our decision to sell our property was a tough one but they made selling easy. The hassle-free process, clarity, promptness, and they were always available to answer questions professionally.” — Larry & Gloria S.
“Working with Driftless Land Co. as the buyer was a breeze. Harry’s knowledge of real estate transactions made my job as the seller’s broker easy.” — Parker S., broker
“He was very professional during the negotiation process and made the closing so easy and quick. I witnessed honesty and integrity first hand.” — Christopher J.