Samsung Electronics America Inc. plans to open a Jacksonville warehouse for its home appliances division and apparently settled on a Westside distribution center.
Samsung, the South Korea-based maker of electronics, home appliances and other products, is the latest among several global, national or statewide companies choosing Jacksonville for a logistics presence or expansion.
Logistics is one of the City and state’s targeted industries for economic development.
Samsung Electronics has posted a job opening for a Jacksonville warehouse manager who “will manage the dedicated Home Appliance warehouse during the new business launch.”
The City approved a permit Friday for build-out within a 400,000-square-foot center at 12400 Presidents Court in the Westlake Industrial Park, north of Interstate 10 and west of I-295.
The permit shows building shell improvements for140,000 square feet, specifically 12 dock levers.
The $417,194 construction job will be handled by The Conlan Co.
The job posting says the position of warehouse manager will be “responsible for all aspects of management of the operation, including new location setup, hiring of supervisors, office staff and is responsible for managing labor company and leads,” it said.
The San Diego office will provide oversight, it said.
The manager will lead and coach four direct reports in the roles of two administrative analysts, a process improvement analyst and a material controller/coordinator, according to the posting. No other job numbers were included.
A CBRE property listing shows the building for lease and available from 120,000 square feet to the full building of 400,000 square feet.
The property owner is listed in Property Appraiser records as LIT Westlake LLC of Dallas, which was assigned a special warranty deed for the property in 2007 by property owner HWLD No. 2, L.P., associated with Hillwood Development Co. LLC.
In August 2006, Southern Region Industrial Realty Inc. sold the 39.79- acre property to HWLD No. 2, L.P. The structure was built in 2006 and has a 2011 taxable value of $11 million.
Samsung’s warehouse would be one of several recently announced or approved warehouse projects, including the Vistakon distribution center expansion in South Jacksonville, the SSI Lubricants location in West Jacksonville and the Union Supply Group distribution center at Jacksonville International Tradeport in North Jacksonville.
The City also approved renovations Friday for the Sam’s East warehouse. The Conlan Co. also is the contractor for Sam’s East at Alta Lakes Commerce Center in North Jacksonville.
The Alta Lakes Commerce Center, off of the Interstate 295 East Beltway and Faye Road, consists of four buildings.
Plans show Sam’s East Inc. as the tenant in one of them, which has been vacant. Sam’s Clubs is the warehouse-club segment of retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
The office-lounge build-out shows a construction cost of $1.1 million. The address of the 129,665-square-foot center is 2550 Cabot Commerce Drive.
The property ownership group is shown as Cabot II-FL3L01 LLC, based in Boston. J.J. Conners was part of the original development team on the project and is working with Cabot through his current company, Chestnut Hill Investments LLC.
Conners said this morning a lease was signed last week.
He also said Sam’s East is represented by the Atlanta office of Colliers International and Alta Lakes Commerce Center is represented by Grubb & Ellis Phoenix Realty Group of Jacksonville.
As of July, Sam’s Club operated 613 clubs in the United States and Puerto Rico. It employs more than 100,000 people and averages 175 per club.
It reports 47 million Sam’s Club members.
According to Wal-Mart’s annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Sam’s Club business segment was supported by 25 distribution facilities across the country as of Jan. 31.
Of those, the company owned and operated eight. Third parties owned and operated the remaining 17 distribution facilities.
The filing said the principal focus of the Sam’s Club’s distribution operations is on cross-docking merchandise, a distribution process under which shipments are directly transferred from inbound to outbound trailers. Shipments typically spend less than 24 hours in a cross-dock facility, sometimes less than an hour. That minimizes stored inventory.
Florida is a big market for Sam’s Clubs. For the 2012 fiscal year, which ended Jan. 31, the company had 611 Sam’s Clubs in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Of those, Texas had the most, at 73, followed by Florida, at 44, and California, at 33.
As for Samsung, its segments include TV-video, mobile, photo, computing and home appliances.
Home appliances include washers and dryers, refrigerators, microwaves, dishwashers, ranges, vacuums and LED lighting.
According to the Samsung.com website, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. is a global leader in semiconductor, telecommunication, digital media and digital convergence technologies with 2011 consolidated sales of $143.1 billion in U.S. dollars.
Its North American headquarters are in Ridgefield Park, N.J.
It employs about 206,000 people in 197 offices across 72 countries and operates two separate organizations to coordinate its nine independent business units: Digital Media & Communications, comprising Visual Display, Mobile Communications, Telecommunication Systems, Digital Appliances, IT Solutions, and Digital Imaging; and Device Solutions, consisting of Memory, System LSI and LED. Samsung Electronics said it was recognized for its performance across a range of economic, environmental and social criteria and named the world’s most sustainable technology company in the 2011 Dow Jones Sustainability Index.
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