There may come a day when you walk into Lowe’s looking for a wrench and ask a robot where to find it.

The home improvement retailer is introducing the LoweBot in 11 stores in the San Francisco Bay area, starting with San Jose in September. The LoweBot is a NAVii autonomous retail services robot capable of getting around the store, scanning inventory and leading customers to whatever screw, hammer or toilet seat they’re looking for. Customers can either ask the robot or type in their request on a touchscreen.

This isn’t to say Lowe’s will become a robot-run retailer devoid of any humans.

“Leaving the data and simple recommendations to NAVii allows Lowe’s employees to devote their attention to the Lowe’s customer,” Marco Mascorro, chief executive officer of Fellow Robots, said in a statement. Fellow Robots specializes in the design and development of autonomous service robots and partnered with Lowe’s on the project.

The robot first made it into one of the company’s Orchard Supply Hardware stores for a pilot run. Lowe’s wanted to see if the technology worked and if people actually liked it, Kyle Nel, executive director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs, told CNET.

This new phase means seeing how the robots do in larger stores and, of course, in more than one store.

“We hope to better understand what scale in multiple stores could look like so we can determine what happens next,” Nel said.

Lowe’s isn’t the first retailer interested in how robots can help employees and customers. In April, in one of its downtown San Francisco stores, Target did a one-week trial of a robot that could track inventory. In New York last year, Best Buy tested out a customer service robot named Chloe. Behind the scenes, robots have been used in places like Amazon’s fulfillment centers for years.

And aside from robots, Lowe’s has tried out other types of tech, like using virtual reality and Microsoft’s HoloLens augmented-reality headset to help customers redesign rooms.

So, the LoweBot might just be a hint of what’s to come in customer service.

Just don’t ask it which paint color would look best in your kitchen.

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Courtesy Newmark

The warehouse at 613 Main St. in Wilmington, Massachusetts.

Distribution centers continue to engulf Greater Boston’s limited industrial offerings with two new leases for a combined 381,000 SF in Wilmington.

Lowe’s has signed a contract for 179,000 SF and HVAC supplier Homans Associates for 202,000 SF at 613 Main St. as part of a joint venture between The Seyon Group and Wheelock Street Capital, which owns the property. The leases bring the site to full capacity, according to Newmark, who brokered the deal.

Seyon and Wheelock Street redeveloped 613 Main St. by demolishing SF 50,000 of the existing structure and adding 21 loading docks to attract tenants, Newmark said in a statement.

“As industrial products continue to be used for other purposes in downtown Boston, areas like Wilmington have become a natural location option for tenants, providing quick access to the city and the state’s major distribution network,” said Tony Coskren, Executive Managing Director of Newmark.

Lowe’s will use the location to supply retail stores across New England, while Homans’ space will serve its 18 locations in the northeast, Newmark said. According to the Hunneman Q4 2020 study, the deals are in a tight market with just 5.3% vacancy among the roughly SF 98 million on offer in the region.

Last mile demand has driven the market. Lowe’s continues to improve its supply chain to meet its e-commerce sales, which have more than doubled, Supply Chain Dive reported. Competitor Home Depot is building a warehouse with SF 775,000 in Tewksbury north of Boston.

More recently, fitness bike maker Peloton signed a five-year SF 75,000 deal with National Development at 61 Leona Drive in Middleborough when the fitness brand launched a $ 100 million plan to accelerate delivery times, the company’s CEO recently announced in a message to with customers.

The companies all lag behind Amazon, which leased more than half of all new industrial buildings in the greater Boston area last year. The 2M SF portfolio of e-commerce in the region will be further expanded with seven new openings confirmed in 2021.

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