Officials with Cy-Fair ISD, the Cy-Fair Houston Chamber of Commerce and the Katy Economic Development Council attended a Feb. 17 beam-signing to welcome FedEx to the community. Officials with Cy-Fair ISD, the Cy-Fair Houston Chamber of Commerce and the Katy Economic Development Council attended a Feb. 17 beam-signing to welcome FedEx to the community.[/caption]

FedEx Corp. is coming to Cy-Fair with a new 800,000-square-foot ground distribution hub opening August 2017. Once complete, it will be the largest FedEx ground facility in Texas, and one of the largest in the FedEx network, officials said.

The facility will employ more than 400 people in the Greater Houston area with a mixture of new hires and transfers from existing FedEx locations. Access to a strong labor market was the most important element of deciding where to build, said Vince Hamilton, vice president for FedEx Ground’s Mid-America region.

“When we triangulated the access to the right labor market, the right people and good, safe highway access, we came up with this spot,” he said. “We saw the potential in this area when we first began these talks three to four years ago.”

The company’s ground distribution hubs are used in the shipment of packages throughout the U.S. and Canada. The growth of e-commerce has been directly correlated with an increased need for faster ground facilities, Hamilton said. Package volumes for FedEx nationwide have doubled in the past decade.

Located on 500 acres off the Grand Parkway north of FM 529, the new hub will start off producing 22,500 packages per hour, officials said. However, it is expected to become the company’s fastest hub in four to five years once it is completely built out, sending off 75,000 packages per hour.

“There will be a day when this hub is producing one million packages per day, which is phenomenal,” Hamilton said. “It enables us to move more packages faster in the south Texas area and to our other hubs in the U.S.”

New technology being developed by FedEx has also lead to improved automation, increasing speed, efficiency and decreasing damage and loss, Hamilton said.

Community leaders with Cy-Fair ISD, the Cy-Fair Houston Chamber of Commerce, Katy Economic Development Council and Greater Houston Partnership all welcomed FedEx to the area at a Feb. 17 beam-signing event. FedEx also presented a $7,500 donation to the Cy-Fair Education Foundation, which helps improve access to college for CFISD graduates.

“We know we will have a great partnership with [FedEx] and look forward to [their] success,” said Leslie Martone, president of the Cy-Fair Houston Chamber. “A lot of people are going to recognize this company as they travel down the Grand Parkway.”

Jason Ford, vice president of economic development with GHP, said the project was emblematic of the growth in the Cy-Fair and Katy areas. The benefits of the new facility will extend to all of the Greater Houston area, he said.

“Logistics plays an important role in the regional prosperity of our economy,” Ford said. “This facility expands Houston’s position as one of the top logistics hubs in the country.”