Ace Hardware next year will deconsolidate and ship import cargo to regional distribution centers from a new import distribution facility near the Port of Virginia.
The home repair retailer said last week that the 336,000-square foot distribution center in Suffolk, Va., scheduled to be completed by May 1, will be located closer to many stores on the East Coast to enhance inventory replenishment. Ace will be the first tenant to occupy space in the 900-acre CenterPoint Intermodal Center, which can accommodate 5.8 million square feet of industrial facilities.
The $14 million facility will create up to 75 full-time jobs.
CenterPoint, almost entirely owned by the California Public Employees Retirement System, is a developer of industrial real estate for freight transportation applications.
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“We investigated several cities along the Gulf and East Coasts to find the ideal location that will allow us to lower costs and provide optimum service to our retailers,” Lori Bossmann, Ace’s senior vice president for supply chain and retail support, said in a statement. “Suffolk is only 30 miles from the Port of Virginia, which is the most modern port in the United States. We also have the capabilities to expand our new facility up to 500,000 square feet in order to accommodate future needs and anticipated growth.”
Ace said the new site will take advantage of the Panama Canal expansion, which will allow ultra-large ships from Asia to reach the East Coast. Norfolk is the only port on the Eastern seaboard where 12,000 TEU and larger vessels have unrestricted access, although several other ports will soon have similar capability.
Ace Hardware, based in Oak Brook, Ill., already operates an 800,000-square-foot Retail Support Center (RSC) in Prince George, Va., that employs about 275 employees. The regional distribution center receives and stores products from thousands of manufacturers, which are then loaded on trucks for store delivery. Some of the imports flowing through the Suffolk facility will wind up at the Prince George facility.
The hardware cooperative has 54 independently-owned stores in Virginia.
Virginia provided a $100,000 grant to the City of Suffolk to help put together the deal, Gov. Bob McDonnell’s office said in a statement. The state will also provide funding and other assistance to support the company’s recruitment, training and retraining activities. — Eric Kulisch