A study released this week by The Boyd Co., a Princeton, N.J.-based corporate site-selection consulting firm, said Chesterfield has the lowest annual operating costs for distribution warehouses among the top 25 areas in the nation for logistics businesses.
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The county also benefits from its proximity to the Port of Virginia, and major interstates and railroads, the report says.
"We identified the top 25 cities for new distribution centers," said John Boyd, principal of The Boyd Co., whose clients include Fortune 500 companies.
Boyd is scheduled to present the findings to a group of logistics planners from the Southeast at a private meeting in Richmond today.
The report says Chesterfield is set to benefit from growing port traffic in Norfolk as a result of the expansion of the Panama Canal.
"We identified Chesterfield as the premiere place to really capitalize on what is happening with the Port of Virginia, which is one of the top ports in the country, quite frankly," Boyd said.
He said Chesterfield's location at the confluence of major interstate highways is "a major trump card."
"And of course, it has affordable land costs, which makes the region an emerging region for new distribution centers," he said.
Operating costs in the study were scaled to a representative 500,000-square-foot distribution center employing 150 workers. Such a center in Chesterfield would have annual operating costs of about $11.29 million, the lowest of the 25 cities in the study.
Will Davis, the county's economic development director, said the report "further positions us as a great location for business, especially in the logistics market, which is one of our targets."
Companies with major logistics operations in the county include shipment and logistics company UPS Inc., online retailer Amazon.com Inc. and medical supply company Medline Inc.
The study looked at property and sales taxes along with total annual labor, shipping and electricity costs.
Utility costs are "an under-the-radar operating cost variable that is influencing where new distribution warehouses are locating, particularly refrigerated warehouses," Boyd said.
The top city for logistics firms in the West is Ritzville, Wash., which "is poised to benefit from growing trade with China and Southeast Asia," the report says.
The top city in the Gulf Coast is Humble, Texas, which is "positioned to attract new distribution centers to serve increased port traffic in Houston expected to be generated by new trade with Cuba."
jblackwell@timesdispatch.com
(804) 775-8123
http://www.richmond.com/business/local/article_cbc4b3da-ed67-5a72-bef7-a7afd5176ef4.html
