On Wednesday, Sept. 17, Fastenal Company announced big plans for a 756,000 square-foot facility at 4100 Beechwood Drive in High Point that the company purchased last year – and those plans are good news for the area.
Fastenal, a Minnesota-based company distributes industrial and construction supplies, will be expanding services and jobs in High Point over the next three years.
High Point Economic Development Corp. President Loren Hill said on Wednesday that, when the Beachwood Drive building was purchased a year ago, Fastenal announced it was adding 35 jobs – but now there will be further expansion on top of that.
With about 100,000 square feet of space in the building that can be used as office space, the facility will also now house the company’s Information Technology and Finance departments, which will begin ramping up in the Beechwood facility during the remaining months of 2019. Fastenal’s IT team does things like develop applications to support automated supply and e-business services for its clients.
“These IT and finance jobs are in addition to those previously announced positions,” Hill said, adding that he and others are very proud to have Fastenal in High Point and also that they “greatly appreciate their faith in our city and in the Piedmont Triad region.”
Hill also said this is a continuation of a pattern from the company the city has seen in the past.
“Since coming to High Point, Fastenal has continued to grow – adding jobs, building additions to its Premier Drive facility, and now expanding in the major facility on Beechwood Drive,” Hill said.
According to Fastenal officials, the company will initially use about half of the building and then expand into the other half by the end of 2023.
In a Sept. 17 press release, the company stated that the Beachwood Drive site will include a warehouse with cutting-edge technology, an industrial vending build center that will custom configure devices for customers, an operation to “replenish and optimize vending solutions” within the Triad and Charlotte areas, and also a public Fastenal branch.
That press release didn’t specify how many new positions will be added to the original 35 announced jobs, but Hill said Wednesday the number would be “impressive,” and the press release did state that the High Point operations are playing a greater and greater role within the company.
“Fastenal is investing in long-term growth within the Piedmont Triad,” the company’s press release states. “The move reflects an elevated role for Fastenal’s High Point distribution center, which now serves as not only a regional hub within the company’s ‘hub and spoke’ distribution system, but also the master distribution center for East Coast operations.”
The company has been operating a regional distribution center in central North Carolina since 1998 when it began with a 56,000 square-foot warehouse in Winston-Salem. In 2004, the distribution center relocated to its current 240,000-square-foot facility at 4110 Premier Drive in High Point. The company will continue to operate that facility along with its new operations at the Beechwood building.
As a regional hub, the High Point facilities will provide inventory and daily deliveries to about 220 Fastenal branches in the Mid-Atlantic region. As the east coast’s “master” distribution center, the High Point operations support the company’s regional hubs in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Atlanta, and Florida.
John Soderberg, Fastenal’s executive vice president of Information Technology, said that the company’s use of technology is changing the way it serves its customers.
“Fastenal’s technology solutions are transforming how we serve our customers and how our customers operate from a supply chain standpoint,” he said. “With our IT expansion in North Carolina, we’re looking forward to bringing even more talent and energy to this pivotal area of our business.”
