Top-Notch Transportation Infrastructure Makes Southwest Indiana a Distribution Hub
Published Apr 16, 2007
The Southwest Indiana region offers a comprehensive network of rail lines, allowing easy distribution for companies.
When Evansville-based Shoe Carnival’s growth prompted the need for additional distribution and headquarters space, the footwear retailer hired an international consulting firm with logistics expertise to weigh the company’s options.
The recommendation? Stay in Southwest Indiana.
“From a labor standpoint, from a cost standpoint and from an ease-of-doing-business standpoint, they said we should build along Interstate 64 within 30 miles of where we already were,” says Mark Lemond, Shoe Carnival president and CEO.
At the end of 2006, the company moved into its new 410,000-square-foot distribution center in northern Vanderburgh County and is set to occupy its new two-story headquarters in Evansville’s Cross Pointe Commerce Center in spring 2007.
Nearly 200 employees work in each facility, and that number is expected to rise along with the number of Shoe Carnival stores.
“We estimate that we can have between 650 and 700 stores open across the United States, and that would really be handled with the new distribution center, with expansion capabilities,” Lemond says.
Matt Meadors, president and CEO of The Chamber of Commerce of Southwest Indiana, says Shoe Carnival’s decision was another confirmation that the region’s central location geographically – and in terms of U.S. population – is a potent one-two punch for logistics operations.
“We have tremendous modes of transportation, and we have them all – air, water, rail and roadways,” Meadors says.
Highway accessibility will only get better as work continues on Interstate 69, which will offer a north-south linkage comparable to the easy east-west access that’s already provided by Interstate 64. The region also offers a comprehensive network of rail lines, Evansville Regional Airport and the Port of Indiana-Mount Vernon on the Ohio River.
With three major airlines served by regional carriers, Evansville Regional Airport also boasts corporate and general-aviation business and some cargo trade. Acreage east of the facility’s main instrument runway is set aside for the future development of aviation-related industries, and a 40,000-square-foot warehouse in the airport’s foreign-trade zone is available for use.
Robert Working, airport manager, says the attractive terminal and remodeled offices for general aviation “give businesspeople the feeling that they’re stepping out and into a community that’s progressive and moving forward.”
The Port of Indiana-Mount Vernon in Posey County is one of three state ports all operated as one entity.
“Mount Vernon is the eighth largest inland port in the country by trip ton-miles and handles more tonnage than any other Indiana port,” explains Jody Peacock, director of corporate affairs for the Ports of Indiana.
Trip ton-miles are a calculation of an inland port’s contribution to a waterway system.
Mount Vernon handles up to 8 million tons of coal per year, plus grain, steel, fertilizer, minerals and more. A 60-ton, dual-lift, overhead crane “can handle two steel coils at once going from barge to truck to train to warehouse all in one motion,” Peacock says.
Ten companies call the port home.
“A lot of people don’t realize that Indiana ranks 14th in the nation in waterborne shipping,” he says, “and 57 percent of our border is water.”
Story by Sharon H. Fitzgerald
Photo by Brian McCord
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