Famous Footwear Opens DC in Tejon Ranch
St. Louis–based Brown Shoe Company Inc. has opened a 350,000-square-foot distribution center in Tejon Ranch, Calif., where all inbound and outbound shipments for the company’s Famous Footwear division will take place.
The distribution center is located in the Tejon Industrial Complex, a 1,450-acre master-planned business park anchoring California’s central trade corridor at the junction of Interstate 5 and Highway 99 in Kern County in central California. The complex is part of the 270,000-acre Tejon Ranch, the largest parcel of private land in California.
The facility is 90 minutes north of the Los Angeles ports and four hours south of Oakland, Calif. Brown Shoe executives said the location gives warehouse operators efficient access to the state’s two major port complexes and the ability to serve consumers from San Francisco to San Diego and east to Las Vegas in a one-day truck turn. The facility will handle shipments for the Western United States.
Brown Shoe Chief Executive Officer Ron Fromm said the center will handle the distribution of more than 32 million pairs of shoes and should handle inventory turns between 17 and 22 times per year.
“Tejon affords us tremendous logistics, labor and transportation efficiencies—cost savings we pass along to consumers,” Fromm said.
The distribution center employs about 75 workers and at capacity will accommodate about 40 more in the coming months. The facility features state-of-the-art cross-belt unit-sortation systems with multiple sliding shoe sorters and a high-density storage and picking module provided by Fortna Inc. —Robert McAllister
