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NANTICOKE — Lincoln, Nebraska-based e-commerce company Spreetail.com will occupy a new 610,000 square-foot building along Kosciuszko Street across from Luzerne County Community College, with plans to start fulfillment team members at $16.50 per hour, officials announced Wednesday afternoon.
Established in 2006, the company will hire 50 employees this year and expects to employ 120 by 2021. Spreetail.com offers a “simple and enjoyable way” to shop online for home, garden and backyard products, a release said.
The new $40 million fulfillment center is tentatively expected to open June 1.
It’s the second tenant announced for Missouri-based NorthPoint Development’s 322-acre Hanover 9 Industrial Park, which falls in both the city and Hanover Township. Chicago-based True Value Company said in February it will occupy most of a 1.4 million square-foot distribution center also under construction and set to open this fall. Two more buildings are planned at the site, which has become accessible due to the new South Valley Parkway, officials said.
NorthPoint also brought Chewy.com, Adidas and Patagonia Inc. to its first 172-acre project in Hanover Township known as the Hanover Ridge Trade Center, and it is working on a third development with three structures planned on 173 acres it purchased along Dundee Road in the township.
Spreetail.com has grown and expanded across the country over the past 13 years, with offices now located in six states employing more than 650, a release said.
The Nanticoke site offers “logistical advantages” to continue that growth and create new opportunities in this region, said Bret Naugle, Spreetail.com’s regional fulfillment manager.
In an announcement event Wednesday attended by a contingent of area legislators and elected officials, Naugle said he can already tell the company selected the right location for its latest facility because local employees hired to date meet its search for “hardworking and humble team members.”
In the announcement release, county Manager C. David Pedri described the company’s new positions as “good-paying, family-sustaining jobs that will benefit our residents.”
‘Unprecedented development’
Standing in the cavernous structure during Wednesday’s event, state Sen. John Yudichak, D-Nanticoke, said Spreetail.com’s investment is the largest single economic development project in the city in four decades, noting the last was the community college construction.
”Welcome to the Hanover 9 business site, where an unprecedented economic development story is unfolding at a breathtaking pace right before our eyes,” Yudichak said.
In addition to creating jobs, Spreetail.com will benefit the community because it donates 5 percent of every purchase to charity, which has added up to more than $1 million to date helping other areas where it has facilities, Yudichak said. The company also provides attractive benefits, including vacations and money toward home purchases after employees have reached certain tenure milestones, he said.
Brent Miles, NorthPoint’s economic development vice president, said his company is proud of its public-private partnership with taxing bodies, the community college and Earth Conservancy, which is the nonprofit that originally owned two of the sites and much of the third tract along Dundee Road.
More than $400 million has been invested in NorthPoint projects to date, Miles said, promising to continue the momentum.
”Thank you for believing in us,” Miles told the group, repeating his mantra that capital goes where it is welcomed.
The Hanover 9 park received a tax break on new development but not the land, which was exempt under Earth Conservancy. Spreetail.com and True Value will receive full real estate tax forgiveness on new buildings for seven years, 90 percent exemption in the eighth year, 80 percent in the ninth and 70 percent in the 10th and final year, officials have said.
Chicago-based Clayco constructed the first three NorthPoint buildings and also is handling the True Value and Spreetail.com structures.
Nanticoke Mayor Nicole Colatosti-Mackiewicz and county Council Chairman Tim McGinley also spoke during the announcement.
Colatosti-Mackiewicz praised her predecessor, the late Rich Wiaterowski, for putting in long hours to secure the project.
McGinley said many people worked together to make the Spreetail.com and other NorthPoint projects a reality.
”I think it’s just terrific what’s happened here,” McGinley said.
