Northeast Pa. Draws New DCs

Wegmans, a popular grocery chain with locations in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, found Schuylkill County to its liking for the location of its new distribution center and manufacturing facility. The company draws high marks for its employee programs.

Proximity to major northeastern U.S. markets and access to major Interstate highways has made the northeastern quadrant of Pennsylvania a choice region for major retailers to site huge new distribution centers.
        Wegmans, the popular Northeast grocery chain, plans a huge distribution, transportation and manufacturing facility in Schuylkill County. The New York-based firm will build a $100-million facility in three phases, eventually creating 508 jobs. Construction began early this year and will continue through the spring of 2005. Eventually, 320,000 sq. ft. (29,700 sq. m.) will be put under one roof.
        Wegmans currently operates a chain of 64 stores in New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, employing more than 30,000. The family-owned company is recognized as an innovator in food retailing and has been named by Fortune as one of The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America for five consecutive years.
        Arts and crafts specialty retailer Michaels opened a 687,000-sq.-ft. (63,800-sq.-m.) distribution center in Hazleton. The facility will employ 275 by 2005 and will serve the Northeastern U.S. and Eastern Canada.

Crafts retailer Michaels chose Hazleton for its new distribution center after looking at 60 sites in seven states.

        Michael Rouleau, Michaels Stores CEO, says the company's fifth distribution center fits in with its aggressive growth strategy. Michaels used Grubb & Ellis to conduct a thorough site search that involved more than 60 locations across seven states.
        Les Gardner, Michaels Stores' vice president of distribution and logistics, says the company pinpointed the Northeast with Newark, N.J., as ground zero in its search, based on location of its vendors and stores. Using the concentric circle approach, the company looked at sites within 50, 100 and 150 miles of Newark. Eventually, the search focused on 12 sites in a five-state area.
        "We did some site visits and started visiting the developers that were involved in the 12 properties," Gardner says. "Pennsylvania, because of the tax incentives and the work force and the environmental issues, became our number one choice. As we narrowed it down and looked at all the issues, the Keystone Opportunity Zone became a larger piece of the pie."
        Strategically located near the intersection of Interstates 80 and 81, the distribution center will serve an area ranging south to Virginia, north to Maine and west to Ohio.

TJX Companies, which operate TJ Maxx and Marshall's stores among others, opened a gigantic distribution center in Pittston in November. The facility, which will serve the Northeast, will eventually employ 1,200.

        In Pittston, TJX opened a mammoth 1.3 million-sq.-ft. (120,770-sq.-m.) distribution center for merchandise for its TJ Maxx and Marshall's outlets. The facility includes a 300,000-sq-ft. (27,870-sq.-m) mezzanine. Proximity to markets, an available, productive work force and the state's KOZ program all helped bring the project to Pittston.
        TJX spokeswoman Sherry Lang says the company's reasons for tapping Pittston include "that it is within four hours of New York City, the demographics of the labor pool are correct, there is good highway access and we received great support, financially and otherwise, from the state and local communities."

TJX Companies' new facility in Pittston, Pa., is just the latest manifestation of a distribution growth spurt by the Framingham, Mass.-based retail holding company.

        The facility will service stores from New England to the Washington, D.C., area. With an eventual employment of 1,200, this structure is the fifth-largest tilt-up concrete project in the U.S. It also features one of the 10 heaviest panels ever tilted at 164,000 pounds, according to the Tilt-Up Concrete Association. Architect for the project was Cutler Design of Worcester, Mass., with its Cutler Associates division serving as project contractor.
        "A lot of people worked very hard to attract TJX to Pennsylvania," says Michael Hozella, vice president, Cutler Associates. "Our role at Cutler was to design and build a state-of-the-art warehouse distribution facility within the budget and schedule that our client, TJX, required to meet its business needs." (For more on the growth of the TJX distribution network, see the Indiana state spotlight, "Making the Lists," on p. 776 of the November 2002 issue of Site Selection.)
        Other regions of the state are also pulling in new distribution centers. No-frills Germany-based grocer Aldi is rapidly expanding its U.S. presence with 578 stores in 21 states stretching from the Eastern Seaboard to Kansas. The company plans to build a $20-million, 400,000-sq.-ft. (37,160-sq.-m.) distribution center in Butler County. Construction is slated to begin this spring and the facility will eventually employ 100.