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USCO Logistics to Hire 300 for Spanish Fork, UT Site
USCO Logistics of Hamden, Conn., said Friday it will hire as many as 300 people to work in a Spanish Fork distribution center it will open in April.
BY LESLEY MITCHELL
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
USCO, which provides warehousing and distribution services, will occupy about half of one of Utah’s largest warehouse and distribution facilities. Located on about 120 acres, the 1-million-square-foot building once was occupied by catalog retailer Fingerhut.
"We needed a good location and access to a good work force," USCO spokesman Bill Roberts said Friday. "All of those things came together in Utah."
Roberts would not divulge the client that will be served by the facility or the average wages paid to employees working there, but The Salt Lake Tribune has learned employees working at the facility likely will earn in the range of $9 per hour and handle merchandise for retailer J.C. Penney.
The company said it will begin hiring in the coming weeks at a series of job fairs.
USCO’s lease was finalized earlier this month as part of an investment company’s purchase of the building. The deal was brokered by Colliers Commerce CRG in Salt Lake City.
"They needed so much space that this was the only building in Utah that they could occupy within a short amount of time," said Greg Hunter of Colliers Commerce CRG. "The only other possibility was expanding a 365,000-square-foot building in Salt Lake City and they didn’t want to do that."
A deal of this magnitude is rare, Hunter said. The average size of a lease transaction involving distribution space is only about 150,000 square feet.
USCO did not qualify for two key financial incentives offered by the state, although they did inquire about them, said Mary Ann Flinders, associate director of Utah’s National Business Development Office.
Distribution centers are not among the state’s "targeted industries," and USCO is not locating in a rural area, which makes it less deserving of grant money available through the state’s Industrial Assistance Fund. In addition, USCO’s wages are not high enough to make it an exception. The company also did not qualify for job-training funds because it insisted on using its own training staff, she said.
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