A massive freezer storage facility in north Richland is

about to get bigger.

Preferred Freezer Services has begun a $35 million expansion

project that will add space and jobs.

“We’ve been moving dirt for several weeks now,” said Burnie

Taylor, director of major capital projects for Preferred Freezer Services. “And

we have an expected opening of Nov. 1.”

This addition to the original facility, which opened at 2800

Polar Way in north Richland in July 2015, will add more than 200,000 square

feet.

Taylor said the company bought 8.6 acres to support the

expansion.

“It will have 204,000 square feet, 15.8 million cubic feet

of storage, and room for 45,000 additional pallets,” Taylor said. 

The original facility, built four years ago, cost $115

million and it dominates the north Richland landscape, standing 120 feet tall,

with 455,000 square feet of space and 313,000 square feet dedicated to

automated freezer space.

The facility handles more than two billion pounds of food a

year. And now, like then, it’s still all fruits and vegetables. No proteins.

“The demand for storage is high, especially in agriculture,”

said Taylor, who was the Richland plant general manager in 2015. “(This

expansion is) basically adding over one-third of the size of the original

building.”

He expects the expansion to add about 75 new jobs, bringing

the company’s workforce close to 300.

“It will be a mix of jobs that will include warehouse

positions, operations people, mechanics and drivers,” he said. “It won’t be new

technology, but the similar technology we have right now.”

Victory Unlimited Construction of Indianapolis is the

general contractor on the project.

In addition to the Richland building, Taylor also is

overseeing new projects going up in Dallas, Houston and New Jersey

“We’re in the process of building two to three new buildings

a year,” he said.

Preferred Freezer Services started in 1989 with 25 employees

in a 1.3 million cubic-foot refrigerated warehouse in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

The company brought in $3.6 million in revenue that first

year.

Today, the company has 39 facilities in six regions in the

United States, 2,200 employees and $394 million in sales. It also has

facilities in China and Vietnam.

The Richland facility sees trucks coming and going day and

night.

The storage building is fully automated, with a monorail

system. Employees working in a control room monitor the system.

About 65 percent of the facility’s inbound receivables

arrive via automated shuttle trucks. The product is taken from those

trucks to a pickup location, where it’s transported by monorail trolley system

to the freezer. It’s called an automated storage/retrieval system, or AS/RS.

The

remaining 35 percent of delivered product is handled in a more traditional way

with forklifts prior to being brought into the AS/RS.

Outbound

orders flow through the same automated systems prior to delivery at the loading

docks.

Forklift

operators then take the product from the dock to trucks and rail cars.

Other

workers load and unload pallets in bays in 36-degree temperatures.