Frito-Lay plans expansion of warehouse in Arlington Heights
Deliveries of Lay's, Ruffles, Doritos and Cheetos will be coming to and from an expanded distribution warehouse on the south side of Arlington Heights, under plans approved by village trustees Monday.
Frito-Lay plans to double its space with a 54,000-square-foot addition to an existing 138,650-square-foot building it shares at 703 W. Algonquin Road. Once completed, the larger warehouse will serve as the chipmaker's second-largest distribution site in North America.
Frito-Lay plans to bring 163 jobs to the site. Construction is set for completion in October.
Cases of chips will come from manufacturing centers in Beloit, Wisconsin, and Frankfort, Indiana, and be unloaded overnight. During the day, the items will be picked and loaded onto trucks and small-route vans, which will deliver the product to grocery stores in the North and West suburbs, officials said.
Frito-Lay moved into the last tenant space of the warehouse late last year, inking a lease for a minimum of 10 years, officials with commercial real estate developer Hamilton Partners confirmed. The building is shared by Taiki, an auto parts distributor, and AVI Systems, a technology firm.
Frito-Lay's plans call for 73 parking spaces for vans and 97 for trucks and trailers, as well as 16 van loading docks, on the south side of the building. There also will be a small stand-alone garage in the parking lot for minor vehicle repairs, such as oil and tire changes.
A previously approved 2018 plan allows for a larger building addition - as much as 192,500 square feet - than is needed by Frito-Lay, according to Hamilton Partners, which manages the property.
"The fleet of over-the-road tractors and trailers of the past has in large part been replaced by smaller delivery vans, which require more area for parking and less area for building coverage," Mike Wauterlek, a partner at the firm, told village trustees during a meeting held virtually Monday night.
Doug Weber, president/CEO of the neighboring Weber Packaging Solutions property, raised concerns over what the redevelopment could mean for traffic on the private shared access road between them. He showed trustees videos of trucks making U-turns and blocking the road.
But Wauterlek said a number of problems have been resolved since January, when Frito-Lay talked to its drivers.
Under the plans reviewed Monday, landscaped islands are proposed to prevent vehicles from encroaching onto Weber's property. Weber and Hamilton Partners also plan to repave the 44-foot-wide drive.