Home Depot on Tap to Open Distribution Center

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.—Home Depot is completing a 600,000-square-foot distribution center in Jefferson Metropolitan Park McCalla that it says will open sometime this year.

The distribution center will work in tandem with another facility in Valdosta, Ga., both of which are state-of-the-art, and will serve as key hubs in Home Depot’s supply chain.

According to a report in The Birmingham Business Journal, Home Depot last month sold the Jefferson Metropolitan Park McCalla facility in a sale leaseback transaction to an affiliate of Illinois-based Inland Real Estate Group of Cos. Inc. for $31 million and leased it back for 18 years.

The regional distribution center, and others like it being built in the Southeast, are meant to tighten Home Depot’s supply chain efforts and reduce the number of out-of-stock items in its stores.

In the midst of an ailing economy, Home Depot announced late last month that it would lay off 7,000 people and close several of its business units.

At that time, the company said it would continue to move toward a region- and district-based support model in field functions.