LUCKEY — Until one has seen it, experienced its cavernous interior, and spent the minutes it takes to drive around it, it’s hard to visualize just how massive Home Depot Inc.’s new state-of-the-art warehouse in northern Wood County’s Troy Township really is.
Dubbed a “Direct Fulfillment Center” — a fancy term the Atlanta home improvement chain devised for its trio of warehouses nationwide that store and ship items ordered by online shoppers — the steel and concrete facility had a grand opening ceremony Friday.
It included the company’s top executive, company officials, a U.S. senator, a live band, and 400 enthusiastic warehouse workers.
“This is an amazing building and it’s very appropriate we have a ‘Game Day’ theme today because it is game on!” company Chairman, CEO, and President Craig Menear told employees minutes before he and others sawed a board in half to signify that the center, which sits on 157 acres, officially has opened. It has been operating since July.
“This is the largest and most complicated facility we have in our Home Depot chain,” Mr. Menear said, noting that it had surpassed sister facilities opened over the last 18 months in Locust Grove, Ga., and Perris, Calif.
“It’s been a very long road to get this facility to where it is today,” he said.
Wood County economic development officials estimated that the facility near Luckey cost $130 million.
Construction began in August, 2013, and finished in March. Workers used 6,100 tons of steel, 3.6 million 5-gallon buckets of cement, and 435 miles of electrical cable.
Stocking 100,000 items (everything but bulk materials available via Home Depot’s website), the center boasts 1.6 million square feet.
But even Home Depot officials concede that “1.6 million square feet” does not do the facility justice.
So for some perspective, four Gerald R. Ford class U.S. Navy supercarriers could fit inside the center — and leave room for two football fields.
Or one could fit the fields of all 32 college bowl games played last season inside the facility.
Home Depot could put 13 of its stores inside the center, which has more than 300 truck bays and a fleet of 172 hydrogen fuel cell-powered forklifts.
“From corner to corner, it’s two miles to walk around it,” said Toledoan John Dawley, an area supervisor at the facility who was giving tours Friday.
He wears an electronic fitness device on his wrist and clocked his mileage last week while on the job. In five days, he said, he walked 18 miles.
“When they were building it, I drove an electric vehicle around the inside. It took 7 minutes,” he said.
U.S. Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio) welcomed Home Depot officials by thanking them for putting the facility — which eventually could employ 500 — in the state.
Scott Spata, vice president of direct fulfillment for Home Depot, said Ohio and Troy Township was an obvious choice, something Home Depot determined in 2011 while planning to expand its online shopping operations.
The Wood County site is close to the turnpike so items can reach the East Coast or Midwest and some Great Plains states in 48 hours.
The California center handles the West Coast and Rockies while the Georgia center handles the South.
The facility handles only online product orders, not items to be sent to stock its stores.
Online shopping was 5 percent of Home Depot’s $83.2 billion in sales in fiscal 2014 but the company says it is growing fast.
Mr. Spata said research shows many shoppers use Home Depot’s website to research items, then order them online from the company.
“People are getting more comfortable with online shopping,” he said. “Our research even shows that 10 percent of online transactions occur inside the store.”
Contact Jon Chavez at: jchavez@theblade.com or 419-724-6128.
First Published September 19, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
