Urban Outfitters: Pa. warehouse will replace S. Carolina center

Urban Outfitters will use the 500-worker, 1 million-square-foot warehouse that has been rising over the past year near Gap, Lancaster County, close to its earlier Brackbill Rd. distribution center, to replace its ten-year-old "Ecommerce Fulfillment Center" in Trenton, South Carolina, when the Gap center opens in July, the South Philly-based retail chain said in this statement today.

The partly automated warehouse, in a Keystone state tax break zone, will speed Urban Outfitters deliveries "for many years to come," the company said in a statement, adding it hoped some of its South Carolina workers will move to Lancaster County to work in Lancaster County. Founder Richard Hayne lives nearby on his estate in central Chester County. Neighbors are split on the center, with businesspeople saying it's good for local economic growth, while Mennonite farmers say it's an eyesore, the Lancaster daily newspapers' Web site reported here.

The decision appears to reverse Urban Outfitters' 2005 move to relocate 200 Pennsylvania jobs to the South Carolina site, a former warehouse for Vanity Fair, the formerly Reading-based clothing maker. Urban Outfitters operates 238 stores under its flagship brand in North America and Europe; 204 Anthropologie stores; 102 under the Free People brand name targeted to younger women, plus an extensive Free Peope wholesale business; and two Terrain garden centers. Like other retailers Urban Outfitters increasingly relies on online orders and has been trying to speed up delivery times to compete with Amazon.com.