Developers are planning an 858,000-square-foot distribution center in Mount Pleasant that could employ 250 people once operational, according to documents submitted to the Department of Natural Resources.
The 63-acre site is about three-quarters of a mile south of Highway 20 along the Southeast Frontage Road of I-94.
The $55.7 million project is being developed by MLG and will eventually be owned as a regional distribution center by R.C. Distribution.
Joe Bukovich, MLG vice president of development, declined to discuss the project, but did say in an email that it remains “very preliminary.” Sam Schultz, community development director for Mount Pleasant, said the village has not received any submissions for the project.
According to the DNR documents, work on the project would start in June and be complete by September 2020. Planning for the project began in 2016, the documents say.
Around 2.8 acres of wetlands will be impacted by the project. The largest facility that could be built on the site without impacting wetlands would be 270,000 square feet. R.C. Distribution needs to have a single floor facility with a 32-foot clearance, so vertical construction is not an option. Reconfiguring the building is also not an option because the layout “requires linear paths of prescribed length for efficient automated access,” according to the documents.
MLG did consider other properties in the area for the project.
“Due to the acquisition of land by Foxconn, very limited vacant parcels are available and those that are, would have greater wetland and other natural resource impacts,” the documents say.
Foxconn Technology Group is building its planned $10 billion LCD manufacturing campus about 2 miles to the south of the R.C. Distribution site. Foxconn has already acquired nearly 800 acres through the village of Mount Pleasant and more than 1,000 additional acres are set aside for the company and its suppliers in the project area. A Foxconn subsidiary has also purchased nearly 200 acres of mostly vacant land to the northeast of its planned campus.
