Distribution Center

Charming Shoppes Inc. a Bensalem, Pa.-based plus-size apparel chain, has agreed to purchase the White Marsh warehouse abandoned by Warner Bros. Studio Store in a deal expected to eventually create several hundred jobs. The company, which plans to open the 392,500-square-foot operation in 2004, expects to hire 150 employees. The work force is expected to grow to 280 in the ensuing three years. "We are pleased to have secured such a desirable, well-located site in Baltimore County for our new distribution facility," said Joseph M. Baron, Charming Shoppes' chief operating officer and executive vice president.

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.

A state legislative committee yesterday approved spending $1.25 million in state funds to help Giant Food Inc. build a distribution facility in Howard County and transfer 550 jobs from Prince George's County. The committee also was notified that Ciena Corp. and Corvis Corp., two of the largest makers of fiber-optics network, had declined the $2.2 million in Sunny Day Fund grants previously offered by the state. The decision was driven by rising losses the companies have endured during the telecommunications slump, officials said.

Random House Inc., Carroll County's largest private employer, will close a book-return operation in Finksburg, employing about 100 workers, by the end of next year. However, a top state economic development official expressed hope yesterday that many, if not all of the jobs, will be absorbed by the company's book distribution center in Westminster. "This was not the kind of announcement we like," said Vernon J. Thompson, assistant secretary of the state Department of Business and Economic Employment.

Some 80 years after it was founded in Baltimore, London Fog Industries Inc. will close the doors to its Eldersburg distribution center - cutting about 150 jobs and putting an end to its presence in the state. The building is expected to close on or around Oct. 1, said the company's manager of marketing and communications, Todd Gilmer. Employees received an internal memo about the distribution center closing from Chief Executive Officer William Dragon Jr. "The facility itself has a substantial office building attached to the distribution center, and that office has been mostly vacant for the last two years," the memo said.

Giant Food Inc. said yesterday that it will build a distribution center in Jessup, a move that keeps 550 jobs from moving to Virginia and ends a months-long bidding war between Maryland and the neighboring state. The distribution center for perishable food, to be built on Dorsey Run Road near two other distribution centers maintained by Giant, will be financed with state help. As part of the incentive package aimed at keeping the Giant center in the state, Maryland Economic Development Corp.

Giant Food Inc. will decide within a month whether it will move a major food distribution operation out of Landover to a site either in Howard County or Stafford County, Va. A spokesman for the supermarket chain said yesterday that it is weighing incentives offered by both Maryland and Virginia, as well as operating costs associated with each location. Giant, which is owned by Dutch food giant Royal Ahold NV, said in a statement yesterday that its 45-year-old perishable-food distribution center in Landover could "no longer efficiently serve" its stores and customers.

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.

In one of the state's largest deals for industrial space, IKEA International A/S said yesterday that it plans to open a 1.7 million-square-foot distribution center in Perryville. The Cecil County center will partially open this summer and will house products of the Swedish home furnishings retailer. When completed, the center will be 800 feet wide and about a half-mile long - about five times the size of an average IKEA store and larger than the Arundel Mills mall (1.4 million square feet)

In a deal that would keep about 300 jobs in Baltimore, the state has agreed to purchase the Phillips Foods Inc. distribution center in West Baltimore for $5 million more than its appraised value to help the company expand operations in the city. The proposed agreement, which is to be presented to the Board of Public Works tomorrow, calls for Phillips to keep its headquarters in Baltimore for at least seven years, spend $15 million on new facilities and maintain its current level of operations.