The temperature will soon drop to 0°F in a $150 million expansion that Lineage added to its cold storage warehouse just off Interstate 65 in Hobart, which is now one of the largest in the country.
The company added 188,000 square feet with about 58,000 pallet positions to its temperature-controlled warehouse at 2201 Northwind Parkway in the Northwind Crossings Business Park just off Interstate 65 in Hobart. The new addition is highly automated, moving goods from food manufacturers to the Costco, Walmart and other distribution centers across the country.
“We not only serve the entire United States. We also cross the border into Canada,” Lineage Vice President of Transportation Jim Thompson said.
The expansion is adding 100 more jobs and will make it one of the largest cold storage facilities in the United States.
“This is a very historic moment,” Thompson said.
The Lineage warehouse in the Northwinds business park originally belonged to Hanson Logistics, which was one of the first companies to open a cold-storage facility in Northwest Indiana back in 2007.
U.S. Cold Storage, CoreX and Meats by Linz have since invested more than $362 million to build new cold storage warehouses in Northwest Indiana.
Lineage operates more than 485 cold storage warehouses totaling more than 86 million square feet and approximately 3.1 billion cubic feet across the globe. It acquired Hanson Logistics five years ago, one of the many companies it has acquired as it has grown.
Hanson Logistics has expanded its cold storage warehouse in Hobart three times since it opened. The latest expansion gives the warehouse 100,000 pallet positions and 76 dock doors.
“This building, size-wise, is our third-largest building in the world,” Thompson said. “It is the second-largest building we have in North America and the largest serving multiple clients. We have one out in Washington that’s a single-client facility. This will be our largest in North America serving more than one client with more than 100,000 pallet positions.”
Lineage pioneered an innovation in the industry in which it pairs together pallets from different food manufacturers to send them on the same truck so it doesn’t ride half-empty and underutilized, making the distribution more efficient and cost-effective. It will start to lower the temperature of the hulking building to 0°F Friday. The process will take about 45 days. At that point, it will be able to adjust the temperatures of different rooms to different products, for instance, storing ice cream at -20°F before it gets shipped off to distribution hubs across the country.
“We’re trying to feed people around the world,” Chief Integrated Solutions Officer Greg Bryan said. “We deliver to food service retailers all over the world.”
Hobart Mayor Josh Huddlestun said he originally had no idea what cold storage was, but fielded so many questions about what the huge building was under construction that he feels he has “become sort of a quasi-expert about cold storage.”
“It’s a great location,” he said. “I’ve answered a lot of questions about cold storage over the last two years as this building continues to be a beautiful landscape to our community.”
The construction project involved the largest continual concrete pour in Ozinga’s history, in which about 9,300 cubic yards of concrete were poured in a 13-hour stretch in Hobart last year. Police had to close off the roads because of all the concrete mixers coming in and out.
“I couldn’t envision what it would look like at the time. I see it now and it is an absolutely beautiful building,” he said. “I want to thank you for your investment. We believe our people are the X factor in getting companies to relocate or invest here. The hard-working people of Hobart make your business a great success.”
Lineage is interested in undeveloped land next to its warehouse in the Northwind Crossing Business Park for future expansion.
”There is a property behind us that is attractive to us. Hopefully, as we look for opportunities to continue to expand, we’re going to continue that expansion right here in this facility,” he said.
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