“Responding to market demand, as well as the specific needs of our customers, WDS has been aggressively growing, opening four facilities, totaling over one million square feet of warehouse space, over the last 24 months. With this facility, we not only provide support for the Sun Chief express service, we also firmly establish WDS as a player on the west coast,” said Dale Young, Vice President, World Distribution Services.
In addition to providing warehouse capacity to the Seattle/Tacoma region, the new facility will offer cross-docking and inland distribution service, helping move freight further inland while avoiding the congestion that can occur at other west coast ports. Combined with the recent announcement from the Northwest Seaport Alliance (NWSA) about their expansion of domestic intermodal capacity, customers can count on freight moving quickly.
Fully staffed and operational, the WDS Tacoma facility offers, cross-dock and transload services, distribution and fulfillment, and e-commerce capability. With a 36-foot clear height, 46 dock doors, a state-of-the-art warehouse management system (WMS), and ample parking for trailers, the new location offers a variety of storage and distribution solutions to the region and acts as a gateway to the US interior for importers using the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma.
World Group, the parent company of WDS, offers customers differentiated yet complementary brands that deliver industry-leading products across ocean drayage and domestic trucking, freight forwarding/NVOCC, air freight, chartering, customs house brokerage, and more. This new distribution facility will support WDS’s freight forwarding sister company, UWL, which has contracted with Swire Shipping to launch Sun Chief express service, the fastest express ocean service from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to Seattle, Washington.
WDS customers can also partner with the brokerage division of ContainerPort Group (CPG®),World Group’s trucking solution and a top-ten drayage company in the US, to arrange truckload, LTL, and rail operations for cargo needing to be moved inland. By opening this new facility, WDS has helped push World Group’s companies into every link of the supply chain, providing an end-to-end, streamlined package to deliver high-value, seamless solutions for customers.
“As our customers diversify their operations, they are looking to us as their partner to provide warehouse support in a variety of port markets throughout the U.S. Our goal is to continue to swiftly respond to our customers’ needs, offering more than just warehouse capacity, but top-notch service and creative solutions,” said Dale Young.