TJX building $170M Ohio distribution center
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TJX's headquarters in Framingham
TJX Cos. is building a sprawling new retail distribution center across the street from a General Motors factory in Ohio that made national news when it closed this spring.
TJX's new 1.2-million square-foot distribution center for its HomeGoods chain in Lordstown, Ohio, could be TJX's largest by physical size. The $170-million facility will employ more than 1,000 workers and ship to more than 300 stores, according to the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber.
TJX, normally tight-lipped about its operations, said only that the facility is due to open next year.
The new center will go a long way in helping to restore some work in an area of Ohio hit hard by decades of manufacturing job loss. The 6.2 million square-foot GM plant in Lordstown, where TJX is building, employed 1,300 workers.
For Framingham-based TJX, the Ohio plant is one of a range of new distribution centers planned to support the company's growth plans.
TJX — the owner of HomeGoods, T.J. Maxx and Marshalls — said in its annual report in April it plans to spend $900 million this fiscal year on offices and distribution centers. Exact locations or number of facilities weren't disclosed, but those planned capital expenses to help support growth is more than one-third higher than the amount the company spent in the fiscal year that ended this February.
The company operates distribution centers totaling roughly 19 million square feet in six countries, including a 494,000-square-foot T.J. Maxx facility on Goddard Memorial Drive in Worcester and 17 other centers in the United States as of February.
Five years prior, distribution centers totaled 15 million square feet, including 12 in the United States.
All that additional space for shipping goods to stores is needed as TJX has emerged in recent years as one of few large retailers thriving during a tough climate for brick-and-mortar sales.
TJX opened 236 stores in the last fiscal year alone and plans for another 230 this year. In the long term, the company says it could grow from roughly 4,300 stores today worldwide to 6,100 or so. Around 1,300 of those 1,800 new stores on the horizon would be in the United States.
TJX saw sales hit $39 billion last fiscal year, a jump of 9%, as profits hit $3.1 billion, up from $2.6 billion the previous year. Same-store sales rose by 6%, with the strongest results in TJX's U.S. locations.
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