Robert Gerwig holds a transportable microphone at Sweetwater’s new warehouse. Photograph: Jessica Boehm/Axios
Sweetwater, the nation’s largest on-line retailer of music devices and professional audio gear, selected Glendale for its first main distribution heart exterior its Fort Wayne, Indiana, headquarters.
State of play: The corporate started leasing 350,000 sq. toes of warehouse house alongside Loop 303 this summer time and shipped its first bundle from the ability earlier this month.
Why it issues: Sweetwater joins Amazon, Walmart, REI, Chewy and dozens of different e-commerce operations which have launched distribution facilities alongside the West Valley freeway.
- Within the first half of the yr, firms leased 16 million sq. toes of business house in metro Phoenix, making the metro the third busiest for brand spanking new logistics exercise, behind Chicago and Dallas-Fort Value, in response to actual property researcher CBRE Group.
Driving the information: Because the warehouse facilities across the Los Angeles and Lengthy Seashore, California, ports replenish and turn out to be costlier, firms are in search of different close by choices and the West Valley is shortly turning into an interesting hub.
What they’re pondering: Robert Gerwig, Sweetwater’s senior VP of distribution and logistics, tells us that metro Phoenix rose to the highest of the checklist after management determined the corporate wanted a West Coast presence.
- Sweetwater additionally thought of the Los Angeles space, Las Vegas, Salt Lake Metropolis and Reno, Nevada, however finally chosen the Loop 303 hall due to its proximity to UPS and FedEx distribution facilities, labor availability and business-friendly local weather.
Particulars: The warehouse is slowly getting up to the mark and can attain full capability of fulfilling 3,600 buyer orders per day by April.
- The distribution heart will begin with about 200 individuals working a single shift 5 days per week however will probably develop to 3 shifts seven days per week, Gerwig says.
- A minimum of 25% of Sweetwater’s orders are anticipated to ship from Glendale.
What they’re saying: “The concept of coming to the West Coast and particularly Phoenix is to cut back the time it takes to get to the shopper,” Gerwig says.
- He says massive gear, together with drum units and keyboards, is shipped by floor, which might take 4 days or extra to reach from the Indiana warehouse to prospects in Phoenix or Southern California.
- Now it is going to take one or two days.
? 1 enjoyable factor: Leaning into the corporate’s musical background, the distribution heart has a small stage the place the corporate plans to host performances by staff.
Value your time: The Wall Avenue Journal revealed a brief movie final week that visualizes the speedy progress of warehouses within the West Valley.
What’s subsequent: To this point, all the developments alongside Loop 303 have been warehouse and logistics.