The Kroger Co.'s automated grocery and home-delivery facility in Pleasant Prairie could employ up to 700 people in about five years.
Cincinnati-based Kroger is working with U.K.-based online supermarket company Ocado in developing a facility at 9091 88th Ave. The project, known as the Pleasant Prairie Fulfillment Center, received approvals for preliminary site and operational plans from the village's Plan Commission on Monday evening.
Final site, operational and interior plans will also need approval before construction can begin.
According to a news release, work is slated to commence this spring with site grading. The facility is expected to be operational in spring 2022. The 330,000-square-foot project will be developed on a 58.4-acre site, and will consist of 30,000 square feet of offices attached to the 300,000-square-foot air-conditioned building, which will be used as a refrigerated warehouse area.
It will initially employ about 400 people. But at full capacity, which will be in approximately five years, as many as 700 people could be working there over two shifts.
Also when at full capacity, the fulfillment center will see an average of 635 daily automobile trips, 290 van trips and 30 truck trips. It will be operational 24 hours a day.
The building will rely on robotic and manual processes to select products for delivery. Products will be stored, selected and delivered to residences with vans headed straight from the fulfillment center. Products to be housed there include grocery, dairy, produce, deli, health, beauty and general store merchandise.
Kroger and Ocado
first announced plans for the facility in November. A few days later, records posted by the state Department of Revenue showed Kroger had
acquired the 58.4-acre site in Pleasant Prairie for $7.4 million.
Kroger is the largest supermarket chain in the country. It
acquired Milwaukee-based Roundy's Inc. in 2015.
The Pleasant Prairie project would mark Kroger’s sixth fulfillment center location. Kroger broke ground on its first fulfillment center in June in Monroe, Ohio. It has since announced other locations in Florida, Georgia, Texas and the mid-Atlantic region.
