Tom O’Keefe, principal and chief executive officer of O’Keefe Development, reviews the UNFI grocery distributioon center project Tuesday afternoon in Centralia.
Developer Tom O’Keefe — the man behind the $100 million UNFI grocery distribution center in Centralia — showed updated aerial footage of the building during a presentation Tuesday, and announced he is eyeing two other projects.
“As the result of me being down here and the wonderful relationships we have built so far, I am looking at one or two other projects in the area for other companies,” O’Keefe said. “Nobody quite this big (as big as the UNFI grocery distribution center), but a couple-hundred thousand feet to 500,000 square-foot buildings.”
Tom O’Keefe is the principal and chief executive officer of O’Keefe Development, based out of Seattle. The developer gave a presentation at the Centralia Rotary Club’s Tuesday meeting, where he reviewed features of the distribution center project, and various aspects of the building for club members.
While O’Keefe said it’s too soon to discuss his other projects, he noted after the presentation one is probably in the Port of Centralia. He doesn’t know the location of the other one yet.
“There are two specific ones that I’m working on, but it’s like first-inning, second-inning kind of stuff,” said O’Keefe after the presentation.
Although UNFI is set to move into the grocery distribution center by July, the company has yet to begin hiring for the facility.
“I know that they are getting ready to set up offices, trailers over the next couple, three weeks,” O’Keefe said. “I don’t know what the normal timeframe is to work on — with existing employees they have at other locations and new people they are bringing here, I don’t know.”
After the presentation, O’Keefe told The Chronicle that while July 1 is the official date to put UNFI in the building, he is still working to get the company in sooner.
Last month — the same day O’Keefe announced UNFI would be the grocery distribution center tenant — O’Keefe said the company is officially bringing 350 jobs, but believes the number is “significantly higher than that.”
When asked how many jobs were coming to the area Tuesday, he said, “350 is the official number.”
O’Keefe said that he does not know when UNFI expects to begin the hiring process.
In October 2018, UNFI acquired SUPERVALU in a $2.9 billion deal. SUPERVALU was the original company O’Keefe began building the distribution center for. UNFI plans to consolidate its five distribution centers in the Pacific Northwest into the one in Centralia and one that is expanding in Ridgefield. The company plans to close its warehouses in Tacoma, Portland and Auburn.
“SUPERVALU was concerned about their employee break rooms and locker rooms and a variety of things and then UNFI came in as the new owner and they took it to the next level,” O’Keefe said. “... They have really ‘Gucci-ed’ it up a lot — more so than anybody else because they say ‘Hey, our employees are our lifeblood and we have to take care of them.’”
While there are hundreds of jobs coming to the area, it’s unclear at this time how many will go to employees from the closing facilities.
The grocery distribution center is a more than $100 million project. The site is approximately 1.2 million square feet on about 77 acres. A two-story administrative office sits between the two halves of the building — the dry warehouse and the cooler and freezer space. The distribution center is located in Port of Centralia Park I at 4002 Gavlin Road.
“We are actually right now inside this dry half and getting ready to set up racking for the tenant,” O’Keefe said. “So they are already actively getting ready to occupy the building, even though we are in this kind of a state.”
