In May 2007, Target announced plans to build a nearly one million square foot fulfillment center for its online business Target.com, choosing Tucson over several other West Coast locations. Target’s Tucson fulfillment center, which opened in 2009, is one of only four in the country and currently the largest one of its kind.
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Former Target.com Fulfillment Center General Manager Ryan Hanson explains the logistical advantages of Tucson and why Target chose Tucson |
How does the Target.com Fulfillment Center operate in Tucson?
Our operations at the Target.com fulfillment center are kind of like a big store. We service guests all over the country, but we primarily service our online guests west of the Mississippi. We have a approximately 1 million square foot facility on about 100 acres. Long-term we have expectations to be able to ship out over 18 million packages to our guests every year.
Why did Target choose Tucson as the location for its newest fulfillment center?
Tucson was chosen for a variety of reasons. First and foremost our goal is to service guests west of the Mississippi, so we knew we wanted to be on the west coast and from a transportation perspective we want to keep transportation costs down and tie them down to make sure we can service guests quickly at the lowest cost we can provide. From a workforce standpoint Tucson’s a vibrant community with a very skilled workforce, not only industrial types of employment full time, but also it’s got a great student population that we think will help augment our employee basis. So far we’re seeing that really play out well.
We could have been in California but the reason we are in Tucson is primarily because of the workforce and we are also located close to a major U.S. highway, so from the inbound and outbound perspective, the transportation fits our needs.
Another variable we looked at is the student population here in Tucson, and just the sheer number of students at the U of A and Pima Community College. We know it will be a great resource for us when we’re looking for part time and some full time employees.
How has Tucson’s business community welcomed the Target.com Fulfillment Center?
Before we ended up choosing Tucson and now that we’ve been here we felt like the business community has really opened up and been very welcoming to all of our team here in Tucson. We’ve been very, very happy with the welcome we have received.
Both from the TREO organization and from the local community at large we have felt very well supported in the construction and operational phase of this start up. Whether it’s good partnerships, where our TREO partners are coming into the facility, we’re showing them around, what we need. Every time we’ve asked and even times when we haven’t asked they’ve been here to support us.
We’ve also had good partnerships from the local community on ensuring we get permits moved through the system as well as possible, to make sure that the construction hit all of our timelines, and to make sure we had the certificate of occupancy, so that was real helpful.
How is Tucson’s strategic location a benefit to Target.com?
Another reason we picked Tucson was its geographic location, from that transportation perspective because it’s a great market - kind of a hub from an inbound and outbound perspective from a transportation mode. It keeps our costs down on the inbound side and again cost down and speed up on the outbound side.
From a transportation perspective we get freight both from the rail and also from mostly just trucking, from the highway, and we’re right off I-10 which is great. It’s a quick shot to the LA market, where a lot of our freight will end up going, and we do ship quite a bit of volume air freight, and we’re 15 minutes from a great airport.
Responses provided by Ryan Hanson, Former General Manager, Target.com Fulfillment Center