Target Makes Plans for Sortation Center in Detroit

Target has plans to expand its network of e-commerce facilities with a new sortation center in Detroit, Mich.

According to the Detroit Free Press, a spokesperson for Target said the sortation center, located at the old State Fairgrounds off 8 Mile and near the new Amazon Fulfillment Center, will be about 180,000 square feet in size. Located on the edge of Detroit, the sortation center will allow convenient delivery service to a large swath of the Detroit metropolitan area.

The site developers could not be reached for comment by the paper, but a sign at the site shows a future warehouse with an estimated June 2024 completion date. Amazon’s Fulfillment Center, located at the same site, spans 3.8 million square feet and began initial operations this spring.

In February, Target announced plans to invest $100 million to expand next-day delivery capabilities to guests across major U.S. markets by building its supply chain sortation center network to more than 15 facilities by the end of 2026. Currently, Target operates nine sortation centers open across the country in Minnesota, Texas, Colorado, Illinois, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

In markets with a sortation center, Target says that packages are retrieved daily from a range of 30 to 40 local stores, depending on the market, and transported to the sortation center to sort, batch and route them for delivery to local neighborhoods by a third-party carrier or Shipt delivery route, depending on the lowest-cost carrier option.