KeHE Distributors announced July 24 it opened its new, 530,000 square-foot warehouse in Elkton.
The warehouse is at 3800 Deerpark Blvd., south of the bestbet St. Augustine poker and wagering center near Interstate 95.
KeHE specializes in transporting fresh, natural, organic and specialty products to more than 31,000 natural food stores, chain and independent groceries, e-commerce retailers and other retailers throughout North America.
Warehouse construction, which was completed on time, began in late 2023. The project had a projected cost of $88.5 million.
Evans General Contractors of Alpharetta, Georgia, is the contractor. Chicago-based developer Stotan Industrial oversaw the build-to-suit development warehouse for KeHE.
KeHE, headquartered in Naperville, Illinois, bought the property Aug. 9 for $7.25 million from InLight Real Estate Partners of Ponte Vedra Beach.
The warehouse is now owned by the BGO real estate investment firm through BGO 3800 Deerpark Owner LLC of New York City.
KeHE has two warehouses about a mile from the new one, which is 61% larger and includes 29,887 square feet of office space.
There are six temperature zones and about 105,000 square feet of freezer space for ice cream products.
“This warehouse has been designed with flexibility and scale in mind,” Chuck Graefen, vice president of Operations and Supply Chain Management, said in a media release.
“Whether it’s meeting seasonal surges, onboarding new products, or adapting to shifting customer demands, infrastructure and processes were built to support success, all of which translates directly into better service levels and reliability for our retail and supplier partners.”
At the 2023 groundbreaking, KhHE leadership said the company expects to add another 100 employees to the Elkton operation that already has about 380 people on the payroll.
The St. Johns County branch is one of 16 in the U.S. and Canada. It is among the largest nongovernmental employers in the county.
Goods from the depot serve stores from North Carolina to the Florida Keys and west through the Florida Panhandle.
In 2010, KeHE acquired Tree of Life, a natural and organic foods distributor, whose U.S. operations were based in St. Johns County. The purchase also included Tree of Life Canada, and together it was a $190 million deal.