Freight and logistics company Forward Air Corp. is expanding the capacity of its national less-than-truckload (LTL) network hub in Columbus, Ohio, through a $40 million real estate and facilities development, the company said Monday.
The project will expand the site’s capacity by about 30% as it adds 35 doors, expands its yard for improved driver parking and trailer storage, and creates a campus with a dedicated national support center for driver recruitment, training, and support. Together, those upgrades will generate freight flow efficiencies that enable faster transit times, since Forward Air’s rapid growth in recent years has exceeded the facility’s capacity, the Greeneville, Tennessee-based firm said.
Forward Air also plans to use the larger site to centralize many of the six facilities it now operates in the Columbus area, including its growing truckload brokerage operations. The project began when the firm recently purchased 11 acres adjacent to the terminal for $9.5 million that it will redevelop to achieve this capacity expansion.
Also Monday, the company said it had hired Coyote Logistics executive Scott Schara as chief commercial officer, saying he will be responsible for organic growth across all divisions when he joins the company August 31. Schara formerly held the same title at Coyote, where he lead the global sales organization.
Together, those moves support Forward Air's longer-term growth plans, particularly within its core LTL offering, according to a report by Benjamin Hartford, a senior research analyst with the investment firm Baird Equity Research. “Today's announcements are incremental steps toward continuing to build the foundation to support longer-term growth potential for the company beyond 2Q20 EPS reporting; these announcements also follow the recent expansion of Forward LTL into Savannah, GA,” Hartford said in the release.
Nationwide, Forward Air is an asset-light freight and logistics company that provides LTL, final mile, truckload, intermodal drayage, and pool distribution services across the U.S. and in Canada, operating 93 terminals and employing more than 5,200 people.
