VIRGINIA SPOTLIGHT, page 5
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Logistics: Truck Transport Finds Home in Virginia
FRONT ROYAL, Va. — Sysco, North America's largest food-service marketing and distribution company, could have chosen any one of five Eastern Seaboard states for its first U.S. redistribution center. It chose Virginia.
Like many companies that rely upon truck transportation to get products to market, Sysco found that Virginia has the infrastructure to support the long-terms needs of logistics space users. After considering offers from Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, Sysco selected a site in Front Royal, Va., in Warren County. The Houston-based, US$22.6-billion company will move into a new 800,000-sq.-ft. (74,320-sq.-m.) facility that will include freezer, refrigeration and dry storage space, as well as cold docks and rail-dock areas. The firm will invest $53 million and create 388 jobs. The facility will be expandable to 1.2 million sq. ft. (111,480 sq. m.). "We are very optimistic about the prospects for our growth and development in Warren County," says Kenneth Spitler, executive vice president of Sysco. "The Virginia location was chosen because of the broad-based available work force, as well as the outstanding communities and quality-of-life amenities they offer potential employees." Virginia Gov. Mark Warner approved a $200,000 grant from the Governor's Opportunity Fund to assist Warren County with the project. The Virginia Department of Business Assistance will provide work-force training for Sysco's Front Royal employees. The company will also qualify for other incentives, including rail-access funding from the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation, road-access funding from the Virginia Department of Transportation and enterprise zone tax credits. Sysco officials credited the cooperation the project received from the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, Virginia Port Authority and the Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority. Construction at the site north of Interstate 66 is scheduled for completion by the fourth quarter of 2003. Upon build-out, the warehouse will serve 14 existing Sysco distribution centers in Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Easy access to global markets is one of the location factors that logistics space users often cite when selecting Virginia. The Old Dominion offers 11 railroads that operate on more than 3,400 miles (5,470 km.) of railway; 14 commercial airports; the Port of Virginia, which services a schedule of 5,100 sailings annually to more than 250 ports in foreign countries; the Virginia Inland Port in Front Royal, which serves as an intermodal collection point for containers coming from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Northern Virginia and elsewhere; and more than 70,000 miles (112,630 km.) of interstate, primary and secondary roads including six major interstates – I-95, I-85, I-81, I-77, I-66 and I-64. Virginia also offers more than 950,000 miles (1.53 million km.) of fiber-optic cable, more than 49,000 miles (78,800 km.) of rivers and streams and a labor force ranked in the top 10 in productivity. Location costs in Virginia also appeal to logistics space users. The state has one of the lowest average workers' compensation costs in the country ($1.71 per $100 of payroll), an unemployment tax burden that is 66 percent below the national average, and construction costs that are 20 percent below the national average. Getting goods to market quickly, and at a low cost, played a major role in convincing Target Corp. to locate a $65-million distribution center in Suffolk. The Minneapolis-based discount retailer announced April 18 that it will build a new warehouse on a 162-acre (65.6-hectare) site off Manning Bridge Road in the Hampton Roads community. The 1.5 million-sq.-ft. (139,350-sq.-m.) warehouse will add up to 500 jobs over three years after it opens in 2003. Other significant warehouse announcements this year include: — Ron Starner
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