Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowWal-Mart Stores Inc. said Thursday morning that it plans to open an e-commerce fulfillment center in Plainfield, creating up to 303 jobs by 2016.
The Bentonville, Ark.-based company will build and equip a 1.2-million-square-foot facility in the AllPoints Midwest industrial park, which is co-developed by Duke Realty Corp. and Browning Investments.
Wal-Mart, which already has more than 36,000 Indiana employees, plans to begin hiring for the fulfillment center in October, according to a news release from state economic development officials.
“By combining large-scale online fulfillment centers with Wal-Mart’s distribution centers, world-class transportation network and 4,200 stores, we have the ability to get incredibly close to our customers to deliver orders faster and at a lower cost,” said Brent Beabout, senior vice president of supply chain and logistics for Wal-Mart's global e-commerce division. He said the center will be able to distribute goods to more than 160 million people in one to two days.
The Indiana Economic Development Corp. offered Wal-Mart.up to $2.93 million in conditional tax credits and up to $200,000 in training grants. The tax credits are performance-based, meaning the company can't claim the incentives until workers are hired. The town of Plainfield will consider additional incentives.
The release from the IEDC did not specify Wal-Mart's investment in the project—a figure typically included for all projects that receive incentive offers from the agency. An IEDC spokeswoman referred questions about Wal-Mart's investment to the retailer, and a spokesperson for the retailer said it does not disclose such information.
"The cost of our projects is proprietary," said Anne Hatfield, director of communications for Wal-Mart.
Hatfield noted that the average hourly wage for Wal-Mart's 37,000 associates in Indiana is $12.70. She did not specify the expected wages for the fulfillment center's employees.
A joint venture partnership of Duke Realty and Browning Investments will develop the build-to-suit warehouse facility for Wal-Mart on a 64-acre site, the companies said Thursday. Its official name will be AllPoints Midwest 3.
It will include 100 9-by-10-foot dock doors and 16,500 square feet of office space. It will be expandable by more than 200,000 square feet, the companies said.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.