Pacific Sunwear recently announced that it will build a distribution center in Olathe, Kan., a southern suburb in the Kansas City metro. The company will initially build a 400,000 square foot facility, ultimately expanding it to 800,000 square feet.

“The trend continues for larger logistics-related deals,” said Ed Elder, executive vice president/principal, Grubb & Ellis/The Winbury Group, who represented Pacific Sunwear in its site location search. “This is another big win for Olathe and the entire KC region. It represents one of the largest industrial build-to-suit projects on the Kansas side of the metro in some time.”

“We are very excited about building our second national distribution center in Olathe,” said Seth Johnson, CEO of Pacific Sunwear. “After reviewing proposals from a number of municipalities we felt Olathe was the obvious choice. This facility allows for further expansion of our PacSun, d.e.m.o. and One Thousand Steps specialty retail concepts.”

Pacific Sunwear will hire 150 new employees at the start of its operations, and another 100 individuals upon completion of the expansion.

Just two months ago, Musician’s Friend chose the Kansas City region for a major facility. The company is currently constructing a 700,000 square foot facility in Kansas City, Mo. American Eagle Outfitters also announced in April it was doubling the size of its KC metro facility in Ottawa, Kan., to 1 million square feet.

Pacific Sunwear has selected a 74-acre site at the northwest corner of 167th and Lone Elm Road in Olathe.

Pacific Sunwear is based in Anaheim, Calif., and operates 820 PacSun stores, 97 PacSun Outlet stores, 200 d.e.m.o. stores and 6 One Thousand Steps stores for a total of 1,123 stores in 50 states and Puerto Rico.

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