Joining forces to celebrate the ceremonial groundbreaking for a half-million-square-foot Ben E. Keith Distribution Facility in Missouri City on March 22, are from left: Robbie Fish, General Manager, Ben E. Keith Foods-Houston Division, City Manager Frank Simpson, Councilman Danny Nguyen, Councilman Bobby Marshall, Mayor Allen Owen, Councilman Don Smith, Councilman Robin Elackatt, Councilman Brett Kolaja and Mike Roach, President Ben E. Keith Foods.
The turning of dirt at the groundbreaking for a half-million-square-foot Ben E. Keith Distribution Facility in Missouri City on March 22 brings with it hundreds of new jobs, other economic development projects and a prestigious company that chose the “Show Me” City for its 82-acre site with the future opportunity to expand to more than 1 million square feet.
Mayor Allen Owen likened the groundbreaking ceremony, held inside a large white tent set up at the site of the future distribution headquarters on Cravens Road near South Gessner Road, to a wedding.
“First you have the dating period, then the engagement period, then you set the date for the wedding and finally today is the wedding. It’s a huge day for the City. We waited four long years and it was well worth the wait because we did it right. I cannot express in words how important this is for Missouri City—to the tax base, to an employment base and to what it means to the community. And my next promise is to bring commuter rail to this location in the future.”
Ben E. Keith Foods is now the eighth largest broad-line distributor in the nation, with six distribution centers serving South Central USA –Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Colorado, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kansas, Tennessee, and Missouri.
The company’s warehouse and other buildings will serve southeast Texas and Louisiana and create about 300 jobs. It expects to start operations in Fall of 2012 or Winter of 2013.
The warehouse includes:
*Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems
*LEEDS Gold Status in harvesting rainwater for use as non-potable water for the facility; reduced paving to reduce rainwater runoff, and plans to recycle 95 percent of construction waste generated.
The additional buildings at the facility will include a 91,455-square-foot freezer, 48,992-square-foot cooler and a 33,648-square-foot Truck Maintenance Garage, among others.
“We believe Missouri City has the high-quality work force we need,” said Mike Roach, President, Ben E. Keith Foods. “Our demographic studies showed it validated our decision to locate here. The culture of Missouri City in talking with City officials, business owners in the area and others, a sense of transparency was evident and that people here were willing to collaborate and understand the relationship between the City and business. It was also a proper fit logistically with access to Beltway 8.” Roach added that “through discussions with the City, the County, the Fort Bend Economic Development Council and statistics from the Houston Restaurant Association, we found this is the epicenter of the ‘dining away from home industry’ in the area we service including Texas and Louisiana.”
Robbie Fish, General Manager of the new distribution center, noted the groundbreaking was the culmination of hard work by the City, Fort Bend County, Water Control Improvement District #2, the Fort Bend Economic Development Council, and Ben E. Keith staff. “We’ll be the largest employer with well-paying jobs for the residents of Missouri City, and have a big impact as a good corporate citizen,” Fish said. “This facility will be the first food service distribution center in the country that will have a double deep automated storage and retrieval system. It will be a great selling tool and a growth engine for Ben E. Keith for the next 20 years. This is a model of what good government looks like.”
The location also allows for the elimination of 50 trucks a night traveling between this area and Fort Worth and San Antonio; thereby saving the company 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel a day, or half-a-million gallons a year.
Jeff Wiley, President of the Greater Fort Bend Economic Development Council spoke to guests about the tremendous growth of Fort Bend County, which is the second-fastest growing County in the state with three of the top 10 master planned communities in the United States, including Sienna Plantation. “Fort Bend County has had very high-quality growth and the type of growth has made the County very fertile for a company like Ben E. Keith to locate here.”
