Wyoming Business: Massive Lowe’s warehouse ready for action

CHEYENNE — Wyoming’s largest building is humming with activity these days as newly hired employees learn the intricacies of what many consider the world’s most sophisticated warehouse distribution system.

The new Lowe’s Cos. 1.2-million-square-foot regional distribution center is being stocked now, and come Oct. 21, the first trucks will begin carrying products to Lowe’s Home Improvement Centers in 11 states as far away as Alaska and Texas.

Landing Lowe’s has been a big deal for Cheyenne, because it elevated the community on the national index of potential sites for expansion or relocation.

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Now we’re finding out why it was such a big deal. Because the Lowe’s Distribution Center is big. Occupying space larger than 20 football fields, the structure itself is huge — a quarter-mile in length, with bays for 149 trucks.

The concrete alone could build a 250-mile greenway from Cheyenne to Gillette, according to Tony Gariety, Lowe’s regional general manager.

Equally impressive are statistics for the interior — with more than 300 miles of wiring and more than six miles of conveyor belts. No wonder total construction cost is $90 million.

Even more astounding are the projections for the volumes to be handled. Gariety said the distribution center will serve about 40 stores this year, 67 next year and 86 when it’s at full capacity in 2004.

It will stock 33,000 of the 48,000 items a Lowe’s retail store normally carries, and will ship $1 billion in merchandise a year.

There are 154 employees now, and that number will swell to around 500 at full capacity. Gariety is particularly pleased that, of the 670 eventual employees in the distribution facility and retail store, only 19 will be brought in from outside the community.

“We’re a company that’s always believed in growing your own (management),” he said during a recent tour, adding that 65 percent of Lowe’s management staff is “self-promoted, home-grown talent.”

From a one-time chain of sleepy local hardware stores, Lowe’s has grown dramatically to be the second-largest retailer in the home-improvement industry (after Home Depot), the 14th largest retailer in the United States and 28th in the world with annual sales of more than $22 billion. Over the next year, it plans to open a new store every 70 hours.

Trading Post under construction

Meanwhile, up the road a few miles, things are also humming at what could be Wyoming’s second-largest building — the new Sierra Trading Post Fulfillment Center.

Sierra Trading Post is building a new 284,000-square-foot building that willmore than double the firm’s existing space — it’s already undergone three major expansions since company founder and president Keith Richardson and his wife, Bobbi, moved it to Cheyenne from Nevada 10 years ago.

It may also qualify as one of the fastest construction projects in Wyoming, with the structure being closed in a matter of weeks, thanks to a new construction technique of “pop up” walls utilized by general contractor Richardson Construction Co.

Richardson crews poured concrete into molds for precast slabs on site, then popped them up when they were cured. “You can stand them up in just about three days,” the construction company’s president, Randy Richardson, said, adding the technique saves time and money.

Randy Richardson is Keith’s brother, and his company built the first Sierra Trading Post building and additions as well as many other buildings in the Cheyenne area. This is his largest project to date, and it’s going well, he said.

The first phase of the new fulfillment center is scheduled for completion in October, with the entire building to be complete by mid-December.

Sierra Trading Post embarked on the new project because of tremendous growth in its mail-order business during the past several years, particularly since adding a Web site and going to photo catalogues not quite four years ago.

Sierra bills itself as “an in-house outlet mall.” The company sells name-brand closeout and overstock outdoor and recreational gear and clothing at a savings of 35 percent to 70 percent compared to mail order, telephone and Internet customers.

The new fulfillment center will be a state-of-the-art operation in every respect, Keith Richardson said. Just like Lowe’s. We’ll have more on the technology inside these two industry pace-setters in an upcoming Wyoming Business column.