UPS to Hire Hundreds in Washington for Massive New Warehouse
As many as 1,200 new jobs could come to Tacoma when UPS Inc. moves into a large warehouse on the Tacoma Tideflats.
The international shipping giant recently landed a lease for the 770,000-square-foot space from Prologis, a San Francisco company that invests in industrial real estate.
UPS ranks No. 1 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest U.S. and Canadian for-hire carriers.
These are new jobs coming to the region, a UPS spokeswoman confirmed on June 6. The company will hire in time to support the 2017 holiday shipping season.
UPS also has a freight-handling facility in Kent and a small customer service center in Fife. Both will remain open.
In a statement, UPS said it is expanding capacity in the Seattle-Tacoma region and has several projects in the works.
“As we ramp up for the holiday season and expand capacity in the area, jobs will be made available,” the statement reads. There are no additional details on the number, locations and types of jobs.
The warehouse, currently under construction, is on land owned by the Port of Tacoma in a space called Prologis Park, at 5200 Eighth St. E.
Prologis plans to build about 1.3 million square feet on the nearly 80-acre parcel — down from the 1.7 million square feet Prologis announced two years ago. The UPS facility will be in the largest of three buildings there.
According to city records, the warehouse is valued at more than $44.8 million, though other upgrades specific to UPS could increase the value. Documents filed with the city indicate UPS will complete improvements on the space.
When the warehouse is fully operational, the company could employ 800 to 1,200 people at the site, said Ricardo Noguera, director of Tacoma’s Community and Economic Development Department.
“If it’s 800 to 1,200 new jobs, that’s great for Tacoma and Pierce County, especially with our unemployment level dropping,” Noguera said. The county unemployment rate in April was 5.3%, according to the state Employment Security Department.
The building is slated for completion by the fall, said Monte Decker, first vice president for CBRE Group Inc., a commercial real estate services and investment firm.
Public records call the space a “high cube warehouse,” with ceilings higher than 24 feet and “with small employment counts due to a high level of mechanization.”
Traffic to and from the UPS facility will increase by nearly 3,000 trips a day on weekdays, according to a traffic study filed with the Port of Tacoma, which led the environmental review of the project. Of those, about 1,100 will be semi-trucks.
Earlier this year, UPS said it planned to build an 840,000-square-foot warehouse in Salt Lake City to be a new regional operations hub. When the work is complete, about 1,500 people will work there.
UPS said in a news release that it’s building the Salt Lake City facility to accommodate the growth of internet commerce.
