DALLAS (July 21, 2010)—Sysco Corp. has purchased 255 acres in Ennis, where the company plans to build a 1-million-square-foot food redistribution facility that will employ more than 300.
The planned facility in the Ennis Industrial Park will supply Sysco distribution centers in the region. The distribution centers then supply restaurants, cafeterias, hospitals, nursing homes and caterers.
"This is the big mother ship that will distribute to all the other warehouses around here," said Gary Lindsey in the Dallas office of commercial real estate firm Grubb & Ellis Co., who represented Sysco in its site search.
Ennis City Manager Steve Howerton said Houston-based Sysco will join CVS Pharmacy, Lowes and PetSmart as major corporations with distribution centers in the industrial park.
"The City of Ennis has made the recruitment of major distribution facilities a top economic development priority and Ennis is fast becoming a major distribution hub," Howerton said.
Sysco has a large distribution warehouse in the Austin Ranch project in Lewisville. That 557,000-square-foot facility employs more than 800 and won't be affected by the Ennis redistribution center, Lindsey said.
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