Distribution Center

Sweetheart Cup Co. Inc. officials said yesterday that it would build a $20 million distribution center near Hampstead and announced plans for a joint venture with Baltimore-based EarthShell Corp. to manufacture environmentally friendly disposable food packaging.The company, one of the country's largest manufacturers of disposable plastic and paper products with $844 million in sales last year, has submitted a proposal to the Carroll County Department of Planning for a mid-Atlantic distribution center that would be just over 1 million square feet and sit on 141 acres on Houcksville Road near Route 30.Tom Uleau, Sweetheart's president and chief operating officer, said yesterday that construction is expected to begin next month and the center should be running by late spring or early summer.

The first automated mail distribution center in the Baltimore area will open in Severna Park next fall.The $3.2 million center shouldbe able to process 30,000 to 40,000 pieces of mail per hour using machines that can automatically read and sort all type-written addresses, says Irene Lericos, a Postal Service spokeswoman.Dubbed the Severna Park Delivery Distribution Center, the new facility will sort incoming mail from seven local offices, including Severna Park, Arnold, Millersville, Glen Burnie, Pasadena, Linthicum andHanover.

Ehhh, what's up, doc?To the politicians and corporate officers gathered yesterday in White Marsh, the answer could be found in the grand opening of a Warner Bros. merchandise distribution center and outlet store.It was ballyhooed as an economic development coup bringing 180 new jobs and a measure of prestige for White Marsh.But 3-year-old Samantha Deangler had more important concerns -- such as breaking away from a throng of children to steal hugs from a costumed Bugs Bunny and his Looney Tunes friends, Daffy Duck, Tweety and Sylvester.

A California-based retailer is opening a warehouse and distribution center in an Essex industrial park that will bring in up to 100 jobs over the next six months.Restoration Hardware, a specialty home furnishings store, will open its East Coast distribution center in September in the Marshfield Business Park in the 8400 block of Kelso Drive.The company, based in Corte Madera, signed a seven-year lease with UPS Properties for 276,000 square feet of warehouse space in a building vacated by County Seat, an apparel maker that has filed for bankruptcy protection.

Aiming to create more than 150 jobs over the next several years, a cosmetics retail chain is moving its distribution center to a long-abandoned stove factory in east Columbia.The Cosmetic Center, based in Savage, received $1.05 million in low-interest state loans this week when the Maryland General Assembly's Legislative Policy Committee approved nearly $14 million in economic aide statewide from the state's Sunny Day Fund.The money will underwrite the company's move and expansion. If the Cosmetic Center creates at least 168 jobs, it will have to repay only $450,000 to the state, said Howard Diener, president and chief executive officer of the company.

U.S. Foodservice plans to close a distribution center in southern Howard County and eliminate as many as 110 jobs, part of a continuing effort to absorb former rival Alliant Foodservice Inc., which it acquired last year. The former Alliant distribution center in Savage will be closed and its operations will be transferred to U.S. Foodservice distribution centers in Severn and in Manassas, Va., company officials said. Some of the displaced warehouse workers and drivers might be needed at other U.S. Foodservice facilities, but the company has notified state officials that it anticipates as many as 110 layoffs - its entire Savage work force.

Giant Food has put its former dry goods warehouse in Jessup on the market, the real estate firm handling the listing said Monday. The now-vacant, 760,000-square-foot complex on 60 acres in the Maryland Wholesale Food Center on Assateague Drive supplied Giant grocery stores before the operation closed in June. The dry goods facility is owned by Giant, but the regional grocer outsourced its operation in 2011 to Jessup Logistics LLC, a subsidiary of New Hampshire-based C&S Wholesale Grocers.

Pier 1 Imports Inc. has agreed to expand its distribution center space in Harford County to about 1 million square feet, signaling that the lackluster warehouse market is on an upswing, brokers for the deal said yesterday. The Fort Worth, Texas-based home furnishings importer will take over an empty 346,000-square-foot warehouse in Aberdeen, a few miles from the 630,000-square-foot building it has occupied since 1990. The new building was constructed without a committed tenant last year in anticipation of a flurry of demand.

The front porch of Lynn Supp's 92-year-old Victorian-style house in the country used to overlook a corn and wheat field. When she noticed this summer that it had been left to weeds, she figured the rumors were true about a different kind of plant coming in.Sweetheart Cup Co. held its ceremonial groundbreaking yesterday to celebrate the new 1.034-million-square-foot distribution center to be built just outside Hampstead, off Houcksville Road, across from...

Nottingham Properties Inc. intends to join the speculative industrial development frenzy later this month with a new $15.6 million warehouse, a building the firm believes will add another dimension to the development of the White Marsh business community."