Petco’s walls go up

It takes a gigantic piece of machinery to lift up thousands of pounds of slab concrete walls and move them into place.

A hydraulic crane pierced the sky last week on Red Rock Road in Stead, lifting tilt-up panels to frame the Petco Distribution Center in just a few days.

The San Diego-based Petco plans to build a new distribution center in Reno that it says will employ up to 150 people.

Petco officials say they intend to invest $35 million in the 770,000-square foot facility, which is being built by Alston Construction Co.

The facility will support retail stores in Petco’s Western region, as well as the company’s e-commerce customers shopping at Petco.com. The company plans to fill a number of full-time and part-time positions at the new distribution center, including managerial, engineering, maintenance, finance, human resources , clerical and warehouse jobs.

Petco senior vice president Mark Hilborn says a key factor in the decision was Reno’s location in a transportation corridor 200 miles from San Francisco.

The jobs, both full time and part time, are expected to pay an average of $17 per hour with benefits.

Panattoni Development started construction on the project in September 2014, with completion scheduled for June 2015. The state-of-the-art facility will include energy-efficient infrastructure in order to obtain LEED Silver designation.

“This new distribution center is another exciting milestone in Petco’s ongoing growth story,” said Hilborn, Petco’s senior vice president of supply chain, in a statement. “After careful review of several locations, we determined that Reno would allow us to maintain efficient operating costs, and best service our retail store teams, so they can serve our pet parent customers.”

The pet supply company founded in 1965 now has more than 1,300 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico.