expansion in recent years. For example, the Norfolk
Southern, BNSF, and Kansas City Southern railroads have
all opened major intermodal facilities in the area. BNSF is
set to open an additional one in the third quarter of 2013.
In the past five years, Kansas City has also made a concerted effort to strengthen its
workforce’s supply chain
skills. In addition to the
degree and certificate programs offered at local four-year universities and community colleges, the city has
reached out to local high
schools. KC SmartPort and
local community colleges have collaborated with the city’s
“Prep-KC” program on efforts to go into high schools and
spread the word about college and job opportunities in the
supply chain. Students can then take a two-week course
post-graduation and become a certified logistics associate,
which qualifies them for an entry-level warehouse position.
While the city may not boast as many mega-distribution
ST. LOUIS
For some years now, St. Louis has marketed itself as the geo-
graphic center of the country, making it a logical location
for a distribution facility. “We are the largest metropolitan
area that is closest to the geographic center of the United
States as well as the popula-
tion center of the United
States,” says James Alexander,
vice president, global client
solutions, for the St. Louis
Regional Chamber of
Commerce. “We are also
within 600 miles of about half
of the manufacturing plants
in the U.S.; that’s a little more than a day’s truck drive.”
As further evidence of St. Louis’s central location, consid-
er this: The city is the westernmost terminus of the major
Eastern railroads (CSX and Norfolk Southern), and the
easternmost terminus of the major Western railroads
(BNSF and UP).
If location is the number one reason why companies
centers as you’ll find in Chicago or Dallas, almost all of the
major retailers operate DCs or warehouses here, including
Wal-Mart (which has two distribution facilities), Home
Depot, Target, and JC Penney. The city is also attracting
more e-commerce and consumer goods companies.
Camping and outdoor product company Coleman, for
example, recently opened a 1. 3
million-square-foot DC in
Kansas City.
Kansas City does have one
type of facility that no other
location can offer: large
underground warehouses.
Scattered across the region, these warehouses, which total
approximately 20 million square feet, were created from old
limestone mines. Because they are situated underground,
they’re able to maintain a constant temperature all year
long. “This leads to higher productivity rates and lower cost
to operate, because you don’t need heat and air conditioning,” says Gutierrez.
choose the St. Louis area for their DCs, the city’s transportation infrastructure is second. In addition to the four
railroads named above, St. Louis is served by the Kansas
City Southern and Canadian National, making it the
third-largest rail center in the
country.
St. Louis is also the nation’s
third-largest inland port.
Alexander notes that it’s not
only the northernmost “ice
free” port on the Mississippi
River, but that it also offers
some advantages from a barge
operator’s point of view. “There are no locks and dams
between St. Louis and New Orleans, so the barge operators
can build very large tows,” he explains. “Anywhere north or
west of here, you have to deal with locks and dams, so the
size of your tows is restricted.”
On top of that, the city is bisected by four major interstate
highways (I- 55, I- 44, I- 70, and I- 64) and is served by five
