FedEx Ground Breaks Ground in Oak Park, Delivering New Jobs (video)
(Crystal A. Proxmire, July 23, 2015)
It was a proud day for Oak Park as City officials welcomed FedEx Ground Executives and other key players in regional development for an official groundbreaking for a 300,000 square foot distribution center.
The center will be built at 8 Mile Road and Greenfield.
“This site that we’re standing on was a manufacturer of machine guns during World War II, was the backbone of Detroit’s famous Arsenal of Democracy. We’re not fighting another great war today, but we are fighting to revitalize our city and the region,” said Mayor Marian McClellan. “And we are pleased that this historic spot has found a new purpose.”
The Mayor called Oak Park “the turnaround city of Oakland County.”
Officials from Southfield, Detroit and even a representative from Governor Rick Snyder’s office came to celebrate the new project.
Scott Burns, Regional Vice President of FedEx Ground shared some of the delivery company’s broader plans. FedEx Ground has facilities in Lake Orion, Ann Arbor and two in Livonia. When the Oak Park facility is open in 2016, one of the Livonia facilities will close and some employees will come to work in Oak Park. Nationwide FedEx Ground has 30 hubs and is working to add 11 more over the next 5-7 years.
There are over 300,000 FedEx Ground employees across the country. The Oak Park facility will start with 220 jobs. “As fast as we’re growing with the e commerce landscape, we’ll continue to add jobs,” Burns said. The company now picks up 7 million packages a day.
“We’ve been in business 40 years,” he said. “We’ve got 40 more years of runway I can tell ya’ that.”
To show the goodwill of the company, Burns presented local food bank program Forgotten Harvest with a donation for $5,000. The big blue check was pulled from the front seat of the FedEx big rig that was used as the backdrop for the festivities.
“The City of Oak Park has been in slumber for quite a while,” said Oak Park City Manager Eric Tungate. “Today is the beginning of our journey to economic revival and notoriety for the excellence represented by all the great individuals standing here today.
“What we have to remember is that while we are repositioning ourselves as a regional player, this is not a time to rest on our laurels. So the question is, not that momentum is shifting by this project and others, and the ice is slowly melting away, the question is where do we go from here? …It’s our duty to invite the next dreamers, the next corporate giants, all of our business development partners to join us on this incredible journey to promote the health and wellness of this community.”
Burns said that when the time comes to fill those positions, they are going to be working with the Ferndale Area Chamber of Commerce to get the word out.
The oc115 will include the info on this website when we have it as well. Check out our jobs page at https://oaklandcounty115.com/category/jobs/ for several local opportunities. You can search FedEx’s website for job opportunities too at http://careers.van.fedex.com/search-results/?country=us&operating_company_us=0&operating_company_canada=0&job_category=1&job_location=24&keyword=Keyword&submit=Search+now.
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