CHICAGO—On Friday, DHL Global Forwarding, the air and ocean freight service, celebrated the groundbreaking of their new $35 million facility at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport. The building will have 53,000-square-feet of office space and a 423,030-square-feet warehouse, enough to accommodate more than 500 employees. It will be the largest building in the US for DHL Global Forwarding, a division of Deutsche Post DHL.

“This financial commitment represents our long-term strategy to expand our business in the greater Chicago area and Midwest,” said Rob Betzer, vice president, US Central region for DHL Global Forwarding. “As a part of a network of US air freight gateways, this new facility will offer our customers more cost efficient alternatives to shipping their cargo given our location on the airport's premises in the third largest city in the U.S., that serves as a crossroads for trade and boasts the largest intermodal-container capacity in the Western Hemisphere.”

DHL also recently renewed a lease for 458,884-square-feet of space for its cargo shipping operation at 10601 Seymour in Franklin Park near the O'Hare cargo entrance.

The new O'Hare location will be a bonded Container Freight Station, designated by carriers to receive cargo which they can load into containers. It will also be a Foreign Trade Zone, a secure area under the supervision of US Customs and Border Protection but considered outside the Customs territory of the US for the purpose of duty payment.

“I am excited by the economic promise that this new cargo center holds for the City of Chicago,” said Mayor Rahm Emanuel. “O'Hare is one of our city's key economic engines and with this strong commitment by DHL Global Forwarding we will vastly increase O'Hare's cargo operation capabilities, and will continue to move Chicago forward as a global transportation leader. This is just one of several recent private commercial investments that are generating opportunities for the people of Chicago.”

DHL will also get facility established as a Life Science Cold Chain Certified Competency Center for shipping of pharmaceutical, biotech and medical devices that need a temperature controlled environment.

Aeroterm will fund and develop the BTS facility on a 24-acre parcel of land Aeroterm controls on airport grounds. “We are pleased to grow our relationship with DHL which already spans multiple airport locations,” said Erin Gruver, Aeroterm's executive vice president of acquisitions and development. “Additionally, this investment validates Aeroterm's larger undertaking at O'Hare which approaches $400 million in investments.”

Jeanne Rogers of Arthur J. Rogers & Co., a partner in The CORE Network, represented DHL in the transaction and Kenneth P. Franzese, John T. Cassidy and Chris Nelson of Lee & Associates of Illinois, LLC represented Aeroterm.

The Chicago building is expected to be completed by November 2014, and until then, all services will continue from DHL's location in Franklin Park.

Instant Insights /

DHL Breaks Ground on $35M O'Hare Facility

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