UPS relocating Ashbottom facility to Renaissance Zone
Business First of Louisville - 1:51 PM EDT Thursday
by Brent Adams
Business First Staff Writer
Before there was Worldport,
United Parcel Service Inc.'s star on the Louisville map was the Ashbottom Road facility where packages are sorted for truck transport.
But times change, and the world's largest shipper needs more room for Worldport, its largest international shipping hub, located at Louisville International Airport.
To clear room for the $1 billion Worldport expansion Atlanta-based UPS announced in May, UPS plans to relocate work done at the 941-employee Ashbottom Road ground hub.
The company on Thursday acknowledged plans to build a new facility on 54 acres near Aganza Drive and Paul Road in the Renaissance Zone, a 3,000-acre zone south of Louisville International established as a tax-increment financing district to fund infrastructure improvements that would encourage industrial development.
UPS officials were not prepared to release specific details of the project, including cost and size of the facility, said Mark Giuffre, local public relations manager for UPS.
The Louisville Metro Council on Tuesday will review a request to rezone 130 acres of the Renaissance Zone to commercial/industrial from residential to accommodate the UPS facility. The council will turn the project over to the Louisville Metro Planning Commission for review before it votes on it, said Bruce Traughber, secretary of community development for Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government.
Traughber said UPS officials had talked about building a 40,000-square-foot facility, but that size was not confirmed.
A timetable has not been set for relocating the facility, and a general contractor has not been selected, but the Ashbottom Road facility has to be removed so the Worldport expansion can proceed on schedule.
The first phase of the Worldport expansion is expected to be complete in 2009. The entire expansion project is expected to be complete by November 2010.
"The sooner we can begin, the better," Giuffre said.
UPS wanted facility to remain near airport UPS officials selected the Renaissance Zone because of its proximity to the airport, Giuffre said.
Residential neighborhoods once covered the acreage in the zone, but families were moved out of the area and homes were demolished as part of the airport authority's voluntary relocation program that began in the early 1990s.
The zone, which is bounded by Fern Valley Road to the north, Interstate 265 to the South, Interstate 65 to the east and the CSX rail line to the west, was created in 2003 to encourage industrial development, Traughber said.
There are about 700 acres of developable land within the 3,000-acre zone, he added.
UPS is the first business to plan a move onto the land, Traughber said. In 2004, an existing business within the Renaissance Zone,
Hi-Tech Mold & Tool LLC, built an 85,000-square-foot expansion.
As a result of UPS's move, the
Renaissance Zone Corp. has committed to add between $15 million and $20 million in roads, a bridge, retention basin and wetlands replacement, to improve the zone. The Renaissance Zone Corp. oversees development of the zone and has a board of directors that includes representatives of the city, state and Louisville Regional Airport Authority.
That should, in turn, spur new development, Traughber said.
"It's pretty hard to sell land for manufacturing and distribution if you don't already have roads and water and sewer," Traughber said. "UPS moving here will allow us to get moving with those improvements, which will allow the area to blossom."
Worldport expansion moving on pace The Worldport expansion is progressing on schedule, Giuffre said. The project currently is in the engineering and facility design phase.
The expansion entails the construction of three more wings that will give UPS another 40 aircraft-to-building docks.
It also will include ramp space to accommodate the mammoth Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-400 aircraft that are expected to begin flying into Louisville International by the end of the decade.
The Worldport expansion will add 1.1 million square feet to the 4 million-square-foot facility. An additional 75 miles of conveyors will help UPS sort 416,000 packages an hour by November 2009 and 487,000 packages an hour by 2010.
The expansion is expected to create 1,284 full-time jobs and 3,787 part-time jobs.
This is what...the SECOND time they have done this? There has got to be a better way of switching up the pilot application process.
Already called my "IN" there and told him to get things going in the RIGHT direction!
