Hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in tax revenue are two reasons why Middletown Mayor Daniel Drew says he is excited a national brand name like FedEx Ground is building a new distribution center in his city.
“This is an extraordinarily big deal for the city of Middletown,” Drew said.
Since Aetna left five years ago, this land off Middle Drive has been vacant.
“This was a massive office complex at one time,” Drew said. “With 5 thousand people in and out of here every day.”
Fed Ex executives, city leaders and Gov. Dannel Malloy took part in a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday morning.
“It’s nice to have a day like this where the sun is out,” Gov. Malloy said, “Five hundred thousand square foot building that’s going to bring 400 jobs to the state, lots of revenue.”
FedEx Ground Managing Director Alexander Kapinos said there will be even more jobs than that once the facility ramps up its operations.
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“It continues our expansion of our network to deal with the growing online shipping,” Kapinos said. “Packages coming through this location will service New England customers and up and down the East Coast and the entire United States.”
This area of Middletown has become an attractive place for companies looking to open up large distribution centers, Drew told NBC Connecticut.
“This is a trend this isn’t a flash in the pan,” he said.
Winn Wholesale Inc. opened a regional warehouse in 2013 down the street from where FedEx is moving in.
“This is a great corporate citizen to have,” Drew said. “It’s a big get for us because we were competing against towns in Massachusetts and against towns in Rhode Island, and we managed to land a company of this size.”
Construction will begin soon and the goal is for the FedEx Ground distribution center to be operational in September 2018.
