Walmart Leases 1.8M SF Spec Distribution Center In Central PA
Another giant warehouse in rural Pennsylvania has been snapped up by one of the world's retail giants.
Walmart will open a new 1.8M SF distribution center in the Central Pennsylvania town of Shippensburg this spring, the company announced Tuesday. Walmart's announcement corresponds with the closing of a lease agreement with landlord Matrix Development Group, which had been developing on the building on a speculative basis, a representative for Matrix confirmed to Bisnow.
The facility at 1410 United Drive is part of United Business Park, an industrial development site sitting just off Exit 24 of Interstate 81, a few miles west of the town of Carlisle, which has been a hub for major regional distribution centers for years. Walmart expects the building to house 600 new, full-time jobs once fully operational, the announcement read.
Matrix purchased 205 acres of United Business Park from the Cumberland Valley Regional Development Corp. in 2016, at which time it had secured development rights for two warehouses totaling 2.7M SF. The Walmart deal follows a 1.2M SF distribution center Matrix built for home improvement chain Lowe's in 2019, indicating that Matrix was able to grow the scope of its development since it acquired the site.
With pockets as deep as any in retail, Walmart has been aggressively pursuing workarounds for and adaptations to the persistently clogged supply chain, from chartering its own cargo ships to developing an off-shore storage site for shipping containers. Massive warehouses like 1410 United Drive are among the most straightforward adaptions a company with the requisite funding can make, with bolstering domestic inventory seen as key insulation against future global supply chain disruptions.
