An Ireland-based fashion retailer is building its
Northeastern U.S. presence with the opening of its first distribution center in
Bethlehem, the company’s first in the nation.
Primark hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony with tours of
its nearly 700,000-square-foot new building Thursday at 2485 Commerce Center
Blvd. on former Bethlehem Steel land in Lehigh Valley Industrial Park VII, near
Route 412.
The timing coincides with Primark’s opening of its newest
store in Boston on Sept. 10, which will be supplied by this facility, officials
said. The store marks the company’s first in the U.S., with others to follow,
including one in the Willow Grove Mall next year and another in the King of
Prussia Mall, with a planned November opening.
Primark acquired the leases for the stores from Sears
Holdings Corp., said Aidan Shields, chief financial officer for Primark.
“There are a number of others we are looking at,” Shields
said of retail locations. “We are looking at this northeast corridor for our
entry point in the U.S. The Lehigh Valley is very much a distribution hub. We
are happy with the workforce we acquired here.”
The retailer, which markets men’s and women’s clothing,
has nearly 300 stores across the globe and operates from 11 million square feet
of selling space across nine nations, officials said.
The Bethlehem center has 45 full-time employees as of
Thursday and plans to hire about 25 more by the end of the year.
The $38 million third-party logistics facility is
operated by Exel, a contract logistics firm that hires employees, manages
warehouse operations and is in charge of transporting products to Primark
stores. Exel will employ Primark’s operational and systems model that has been
used by DHL Supply Chain in the United Kingdom and Europe the past six years.
“We will manage the operations and the transportation; we
understand how critical our performance is for the business,” said Dan McNutt,
senior vice president of retail at Exel.
Primark’s Bethlehem facility averages about 8,000 cartons
of products each day, said David James, head of distribution operations for
Primark. About half of the products come from China; so far, workers in
Bethlehem picked about 14,000 cartons of merchandise to be shipped to the store
in Boston, James said.
The building can accommodate more than 14,000 different
products.
Unlike traditional distribution operations, the picking
process is hands-free. Instead of carrying a bulky scanner gun to locate items,
workers use a headset, James said. Trucks deliver the products to the site
already stored in cartons, boxes and packages, so the facility has no packing
operation.
Also, once shipments arrive, products in the new
distribution center are stored in a more logical, less random fashion, making
for more efficiencies since items can be located quicker.
Trammell Crow Co., headquartered in Dallas, Texas, with
an office in West Conshohocken, developed the property. Trammell and its
partner, Clarion Partners, also based in Dallas, financed the project.
Trammell bought the land for $6.4 million from Lehigh
Valley Industrial Park Inc., according to Northampton County property
assessment records.
Construction began in 2013. Norwood Co. of Malvern was
the general contractor; KSS Architects of Princeton, N.J., designed the
project.
“Our presence here underlines the importance of our
growth,” said Breege O’Donoghue, group director, business development and new
markets for Primark. “This is our first distribution center in the U.S. It’s
one of the fastest-growing regions in the U.S.”
The Bethlehem distribution site has a number of energy
efficient attributes. As an example, she said, it has low-energy lighting with
motion sensors activating each zone, while recycling of materials also is a
priority.
“This facility will easily reach all of the population
centers,” said Bethlehem Mayor Robert Donchez, who spoke about the growth of
the former Bethlehem Steel land in the industrial park and its ability to
attract strong tenants. “The transformation taking place at this site is truly
remarkable.”
Source: LVB
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