Sandy Run lands business; distribution center announced

A third-party logistics company is expanding its network of warehouses to Calhoun County.

Kansas-based Smart Warehousing on Thursday announced it will open a warehouse and distribution center at the 761-acre Sandy Run Industrial Park.

The company will begin operations May 1, according to its website.

It will locate in the 497,952-square-foot spec building to serve Smart Warehousing customers in the Southeast. The company will lease the entire building from Red Rock Developments, the developer of the building.

The amount being invested and the jobs being created were not immediately available Thursday.

“In order to best serve our customers, we always look for their feedback,” CEO and founder Carl Wasinger said. “In this case, South Carolina was a recurring wish-list item for our customers.”

Calhoun County Administrator and Director of Economic Development John McLauchlin said the arrival of Smart Warehousing is a testament to Calhoun County’s friendly industrial and business climate.

“It just proves the industrial market in Calhoun County, specifically in the upper part of the county,” McLauchlin said. “We’ve got a lot of things that attract, not just land, but our taxes are low, our utilities are low.”

“That is the biggest factor,” McLauchlin said. “We are filling out four to five requests for proposals on the upper part of the county every week.”

McLauchlin said Smart Warehousing will service several customers, with Amazon expected to be one of its largest. Other top customer sectors include food and beverage, beauty and personal care, pet supplies, sporting goods, home improvement and patio, lawn and garden items.

“They will be warehousing for various customers, not just in South Carolina but the entire Southeast,” McLauchlin said.

Smart Warehousing said it chose Calhoun County for several reasons.

It cited the county’s central location and proximity to transportation networks, noting its customers will benefit from lower logistics and transportation costs. The location will help minimize time in transit.

The company cited the state’s five primary airports, 2,300 miles of rail lines and five interstates as offering highway access in any direction.

“Half of the United States’ population, about 130 million people, live within a one day’s drive from South Carolina,” the company said.

The company also noted the proximity to the Port of Charleston.

Smart Warehousing is located in 12 different markets in the country.

The company says the new warehouse will ensure its customers in the Southeast will receive their products on time and promised full inventory for its customers.

The proximity of the warehouse to major markets will also reduce shipping times, according to the company.

The company will also plan to have cold storage available and cold storage shipments.

Red Rock Developments broke ground on the cross-dock industrial facility in June 2022.

The building is expandable to 663,836 square feet. It features direct access from Interstate 26 and is located near a number of companies, including DAK Americas, Amazon Distribution Center, Nephron Pharmaceuticals, the UPS Air HUB and the Columbia Metropolitan Airport.

The Sandy Run Industrial Park, which straddles the Lexington and Calhoun county lines, has access to all utilities. It is already home to a Zeus Industrial Products plant and is anchored by DAK Americas.

McLauchlin said Red Rock is in the process of building another 500,000-square-foot speculative building in another part of the industrial park. The company has just started the design phase of the new building, McLauchlin said.

“The market is so good,” McLauchlin said. “It is definitely taking off. We have had a number of other lookers.”

Smart Warehousing was founded in 2001 in Lenexa, Kansas.