Transportation & Distribution

From its founding as a fur trading post to its role as the Gateway to the West, transportation has always been a key part of what makes St. Louis tick.

It still is. In some respects, the area is currently emerging as an even more important avenue of American commerce. The evidence lies in major new distribution facilities like those for companies like Hershey Foods and Unilever in Madison County, Ill.

Shipping costs are among the lowest of any region nationwide — making St. Louis ideal for companies focused on logistics, transportation and distribution, or heavily reliant on those components.

Airports
Distribution Companies

Saint Louis University and the University of Missouri-St. Louis have supply-chain curriculums, and the University of Missouri-Columbia and Missouri State University both have logistics programs in their business schools.

Located near both the geographic and population centers of the country, St. Louis boasts extensive air, road, rail and river access to virtually anywhere. St. Louis is within 500 miles of one-third of the U.S. population and within 1,500 miles of 90 percent of the North American population and gross domestic product.

Serving the St. Louis area are four interstate highways and six major railroads. St. Louis lies at the confluence of three major rivers – the Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois – with 14 active ports and more than 100 docking facilities extending 70 miles along the Illinois and Missouri banks. St. Louis  is the second largest inland port by tonnage in the United States and handles more than 32 million tons of goods and materials annually, including petroleum, chemicals, grain and other cargo.

Scott Air Force Base, located in St. Clair County, is home to the U.S. Transportation Command and one of its subsidiaries, the Air Mobility Command. The Transportation Command is America's global defense transportation system; it is in charge of moving the nation’s military and its equipment wherever it goes in the world. Many of Scott’s more than 12,000 military and civilian personnel therefore have significant expertise in logistics and transportation.

Airports

• Lambert-St. Louis International Airport has 83 gates and serves 15 airlines, with an average flight time to most major U.S. cities of just two to three hours. The airport offers nearly 800 daily arrivals and departures and nonstop service to about 90 destinations. Lambert is completing a $1 billion expansion, which includes installation of a third major runway that will increase capacity, especially in inclement weather. The runway is scheduled for completion in spring 2006.
  
  
• MidAmerica St. Louis Airport, is the region’s second-largest airport. Just 24 miles from downtown St. Louis in St. Clair County, Ill., it has parallel runways of 10,000 and 8,000 feet. Situated on 5,500 acres adjacent to Interstate 64, MidAmerica is a Foreign Trade Zone and offers air cargo facility development sites of 17 to 200+ acres. A 50,000 square foot cargo terminal with truck access was recently completed.
  
  

Distribution Companies
More than 125 companies operate large distribution facilities in Greater St. Louis, occupying a combined space of more than 10 million square feet. Some of the biggest include Hershey Foods, Ozburn-Hessey Logistics/Lanter Distributing, Dial, Procter & Gamble, Whirlpool, and Unilever. Such companies benefit from cheap, flat land; skilled, available labor; and a location at the nexus of five major interstate highways. Based here are:

• Graybar, a Fortune 500 company, the leading North American distributor of high-quality components, equipment and materials for the electrical and telecommunications industries and a specialist in supply chain management services.

• UniGroup Inc., which operates Mayflower Transit and United Van Lines among other transportation services.

• Logistics Management Solutions (LMS), which specializes in operating load control centers for companies such as BASG, Monsanto, and Eaton.

• GENCO, in Madison County, Ill., a leading provider of third-party logistics which manages distribution centers of more than 1 million square feet each for Hershey Foods and Unilever.

More than 125 companies operate large distribution facilities in Greater St. Louis, occupying a combined space of more than 10 million square feet.

Major St. Louis Area Distribution Companies More Than 1 Million Square Feet Hershey Foods Ozburn-Hessey Logistics/Lanter Distributing Unilever United Stationers Supply Distribution Mallinckrodt Nevco Scoreboard Co. 800,000 to 1 Million Square Feet Dial Corporation Procter & Gamble. More Than 300,000 Square Feet Aldi's Foods Buske Lines Fresh Warehousing Rawlings Sporting Goods Madison Warehouse Trane Company US Foodservice Grey Eagle Distributors More Than 100,000 Square Feet Anheuser-Busch Beltservice Coca-Cola CWC Inventories Craftsmen Industries Esselte Pendaflex Graybar Electric Georgia Pacific Kraft/CapriSun Lear Seating

Largest Employers Transportation and Distributions Employment Number of Firms Wholesale Trade 56,810 5,356 Air Transportation 3,720 45 Rail Transportation 590 22 Water Transportation 360 23 Truck Transportation 12,160 1,190 Warehousing and Storage 4,830 183 Freight Transportation Arrangement 1,230 167 Total 79,700 6,986 Source: US Bureau of Labor Statistics Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.