Shipping and logistics provider DHL Express has expanded its Connecticut service center to meet customers' growing demand for international shipping, the company said Thursday.

The $4 million investment added 16,000 square feet of warehousing space, bringing the facility's total square footage to nearly 38,000, and included the addition of state-of-the-art processing equipment. The facility can now stage more than double the number of vehicles around its sorting belt, which features a back-to-back-unload belt design that allows faster movement and sorting to awaiting delivery vehicles, the company said.

DHL Express said growth in e-commerce as well as other industries is spurring the increase in international trade in the region.

Located in West Hartford, the facility's pickup and delivery service area includes greater Hartford, north to Amherst, Mass., west to Torrington, Conn., south to Long Island Sound, and east to the Rhode Island border, the company said. The facility is also connected to the DHL network globally through direct flights to and from the company's Americas Hub at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport, as well as via ground to and from the DHL JFK International Gateway, officials said.