NY Gets New DCs

Wal-Mart is building a mammoth 1.2 million sq.-ft. (111,500-sq.-m.) distribution center in Orange County. The company's distribution centers are highly automated.

Modern distribution centers are going up all across the U.S. as companies strive for efficiency, and New York is getting its share of them.
        Wal-Mart announced the largest new distribution center project in the state during 2002: a $48.5-million, 1.2-million-sq.-ft. (111,500-sq.-m.) box which will eventually employ 1,000 in Orange County. Construction will begin this summer with an opening slated for fall 2004. Wal-Mart will invest more than $25 million in real estate and construction, $20 million in machinery and equipment and $3.5 million in infrastructure and training.
        Best Buy is building a $45-million, 650,000-sq.-ft. (60,400-sq.-m) distribution facility in Tioga County. Slated for a spring completion, the facility will create more than 400 jobs over the next five years.
        Daisytek International, a $1.2-billion Texas-based distributor of office and computer supplies, opened a 350,000-sq.-ft. (32,500-sq.-m.) facility in Bethlehem. Daisytek invested $7.2 million and the project will create 300 jobs.
        On Long Island, the city of Islip will be the site of NBTY's new 140,000-sq.-ft. (13,000-sq.-m.) distribution center. The largest U.S. manufacturer of vitamin and nutritional supplements, NBTY chose the site over a location in Illinois. The company will create 150 jobs as it builds the facility adjacent to its soft gel cap manufacturing plant.