MILTON — When discussing building projects that the Patton Logistics Group has underway in a triangle from Columbus, Ohio to Dublin, Virginia to Milton, it might easier to ask where the company isn’t putting up new construction.
The Northumberland County-based group broke ground late last month on a new 150,000-square-foot warehouse at the Milton Industrial Complex.
Owner Steve Patton said the entire facility, expected to be completed in June, is already leased. Patton’s logistics group continues to evolve as the industry evolves with projects planned or ongoing in Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania with two trucking operations centers and 735,000 square feet of warehouse space in the construction or development stage.
Patton said between the Logistics Group, Watsontown Trucking and Patton Warehousing, his group employs 1,000 people with a fleet of 450 vehicles. He said he expects to bring on another 175 people across its three divisions in the next 12 to 16 months.
“We’re just getting started,” Patton said.
The newest facility in Milton will become a 500-foot by 300-foot warehouse with 350 feet of truck maneuvering zones and an estimated 50 spaces for truck parking. That location, coupled with developing plans for a large swath of property recently purchased at Great Stream Commons, continues the company’s growth locally.
Patton already has operations centers or plans for expansions to operations centers in Dublin, Virginia and Hagerstown, along the exploding Interstates 81 corridor, along with eyes on a 100,000 square foot expansion in Columbus, Ohio.
The Interstate 81 corridor continues to grow in importance, Patton said, as the industry changes. The days of over-the-road truck drivers being gone for days or weeks at a time is ending. That puts the emphasis on logistics locations along major highways, places where product can be handed off for the next leg of a journey, Patton said.
“Formerly, there was warehousing for people that made a certain product and you might ship something 1,000 miles to a client,” Patton said.
“It used to be drivers would be going from St. Louis to New York City all day, every day. That doesn’t happen anymore. You might drive 500 miles to a distribution point along Interstate 81. Then someone else takes it the last 500 miles to its destination. Shorter commutes for everyone.”
“Trucking companies want to keep attracting new drivers, so they’ve pulled back from the longer distances.”
The demand for warehousing is great and growing, Patton said. He called Intestate 81 the best highway in the nation. He said the high-profile corridor used to run from Harrisonburg, Virginia to Harrisburg, but is now extending northeast to Scranton.
Patton said his group is looking at existing facilities from Hazleton to Wilkes-Barre and Scranton to accommodate customers.
“We have to try to find space so we don’t have to turn clients away. We don’t want to do that,” he said.
“The location in Milton is completely leased already. We could probably build five more buildings and lease them immediately. We are growing faster than we can build buildings.”
That growth means adding employees.
Patton said when he partnered with the former owner of Watsontown Trucking in the mid-1990s, the company had fewer than 10 trucks and a dozen employees.
He said they have hired about 85 drivers in the past year.
“Nationally, there is a driver shortage of about 70,000 to 80,000,” he said.
“So how do you fill that gap? You make it easier on them by shortening their commute.”
