Bon-Ton Opens 743K at Duke's Park 70

COLUMBUS—Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. has just opened a 743,000 square foot, direct-to-consumer fulfillment center located in west suburban West Jefferson, becoming the latest of a series of companies that have launched massive distribution facilities in this growing market. 

“It is common as retailers are strategizing how to execute an Omni-Channel platform,” Brad Struck of E. Smith Realty Partners tells GlobeSt.com. Along with Sharon Morrison, he represented Bon-Ton in negotiations over the property and Art Makris and Jim Clark represented the landlord Duke Realty. Johnson Stephens Consulting provided design, site selection, MHE implementation and WMS integration services for the new facility.

Located at 115 Enterprise Pkwy. in Duke's Park 70 industrial park, the new 32' clear fulfillment center will serve as a hub for the Bon-Ton family of stores, which operates in the Northeast, Midwest and upper Great Plains. The company's stores include Bergner's, Boston Store, Carson Pirie Scott, Elder Beerman, Herberger's and Younkers.

It's no surprise that the Columbus region is garnering so much interest from distributors. According to a recent JLL study, 47% of the US population, and 33% of the Canadian, lies within a 10-hour drive of Columbus. Since 2010, the vacancy rate among industrial properties here sank from 12.4% to around 6.0%, a decline that far outpaced the national average. And in 2014 tenants in the metro area absorbed 4.7 million square feet, also a much faster pace than the US overall.

Duke has become quite active in the metro area, and not just at Park 70. Officials from the REIT announced in August that, along with the Columbus Regional Airport Authority and Capitol Square, Ltd. they will build a 482,300 square foot warehouse at Rickenbacker Global Logistics Park southeast of Columbus.

Bon-Ton officials say that consolidating the work done by five older e-commerce distribution centers spread across several regions into this one highly automated center will allow the company to significantly expand its shipping capacity, with an estimated 350,000 orders per day at its peak during the holiday season.

“Our goal was to provide the best e-commerce solution for Bon-Ton's business needs, and it was a true team effort on all accounts,” adds Struck. “We are privileged to work with Bon-Ton to secure a state-of-the-art fulfillment center.”