The parent company of the Food Lion grocery chain has declared its intention to build a massive new distribution center in a fast-growing area of Burlington that lies within the eastern reaches of Guilford County.
Ahold Delhaize USA, the American division of this Dutch-owned concern, issued a formal announcement on Wed-nesday to confirm that it has selected Bur-lington to host this $860 million facility, which will provide climate-controlled storage and shipping for Food Lion and other subsidiaries.
According to Ahold Delhaize USA, this facility will ultimately feature more than 1 million square feet of floor space as well as a workforce on the order of 500 employees. It will, moreover, inject some $860 million into Burlington’s tax base, making it far and away the largest corporate investment that the city has witnessed in decades.
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The precise site that Ahold Delhaize USA has chosen for the new distribution center consists of about 196 acres along NC 61 – not far from the Rock Creek Industrial Center on the outskirts of Whitsett. This tract, which was assembled last year by a Greensboro developer, is situated near Lake Mackintosh on the western perimeter of Burlington’s municipal limits.
In order to secure the company’s commitment to this location, Burlington’s city council has proffered an eight-figure housewarming gift that includes $21.5 million in cash payments as well as density credits from city owned property and infrastructure improvements to be bankrolled by $4,350,000 in funds from the state.
In the meantime, Guilford County’s commissioners have extended their own financial enticement worth another $17.9 million, while the state has pledged to chip in an additional $250,000 from the One North Carolina Fund, which provides “performance-based” grants to projects that expand the state’s work force.
The company’s decision to locate this project in Burlington has been roundly applauded by both local and state-level officials. A particularly enthusiastic reaction has come from North Carolina’s governor Josh Stein, who reflected on Food Lion’s origin in Salisbury in his own announcement about the new distribution center.
“Food Lion has years of experience feeding North Carolina,” the governor declared in a news release, which was issued in tandem with the company’s announcement on Wednesday. “We are excited that Ahold Delhaize USA has chosen to double down on its investment in the state and establish this important new facility in Burlington.”
“This is the largest capital investment in the Burlington area in anyone’s memory,” added state rep. Alan Branson, who represents the eastern Guilford area where the plant will be built. “We couldn’t be more excited to welcome these new jobs to the region.”
Stein dispatched this valedictory statement shortly before Burlington’s city council convened a public hearing on the city’s proposed incentives for Ahold Delhaize USA.
Adam Shull, the city’s economic development director, kicked off these relatively brief proceedings with a few words to the council about the significance of the deal under consideration.
“This investment is a game changer of an unprecedented scale for Burlington,” he asserted. “Your decision today has the potential to define your legacy as leaders by bringing in one of the largest, single capital and jobs investments in the history of the city.”
The only comments that the council received at the subsequent hearing came from Teross Young, Ahold Delhaize USA’s vice president of government relations who also serves as the mayor of Troutman, North Carolina.
“Our companies are proud of the presence that we have in North Carolina,” Young assured Burlington’s elected leaders during the hearing, “and we’re proud to grow this $860 million investment in this state and your city.”
The council went on to approve the proposed incentives package in a 5-to-0 decision.
With that out of the way, Burlington’s mayor Jim Butler took a few moments to recount the hard work that he said underlay this achievement.
“This is the definition of where preparation meets good fortune,” he explained. “I can think back three or four years when we started laying the groundwork for this…This is a testament to what Burlington is capable of doing.”
Under the deal that the council approved on Wednesday, the city will pay out the promised $21.5 million in multiple increments once Ahold Delhaize USA has begun to invest its own capital into the project. This agreement requires the new facility to have an assessed tax value of $860 million as well as a workforce of 505 employees by December 31, 2033.
Roughly two hours after the council signed off on this offer, Guilford County’s commissioners held their own public hearing, which ended in a 9-to-0 vote of approval for another $17.9 million in incremental cash payments. By that point, the state had already greenlit its proposed $250,000 contribution from the One North Caroliana Fund, which obligates the company to hire an initial workforce of 120 people.
According to Ahold Delhaize USA, contractors will break ground on the new distribution center in 2026 with the intention of having it up and running by 2029.
The proposed site of the company’s new distribution facility has been pieced together along NC 62 by Ian Phillips of Crown Companies in Greensboro. Last year, Phillips approached the city of Burlington with a request to have 10 of these parcels rezoned for medium industrial use. He ultimately pitched this request twice to the city’s planning and zoning commission due to a late addition of an 11th tract. Then, in August of 2024, Burlington’s city council unanimously approved the proposed zoning for a swath of territory that, by then, comprised 196 acres.
It wasn’t until September of this year that land transfer documents for all of these lots were filed with Guilford County’s register of deeds. These records memorialize 11 separate transactions with a cumulative price tag of nearly $18.4 million for the 196.14 acres at play.
At the moment, Ahold Delhaize USA operates three other distribution centers in North Carolina. These facilities are located in Butner, Dunn, and Salisbury – the U.S. company’s headquarters.
Distribution centers growing along Alamance-Guilford stretch of I-85/40
Distribution and warehouse facilities have become increasingly prominent in both Alamance and Guilford Counties.
The new million-plus square foot distribution center would be similar in size to the UPS distribution center in Mebane, which also boasts about 1 million square feet, and which promised to bring 451 new jobs to the area. However, the Food Lion-related project is about half the size of the distribution facility of another major grocer, Publix, which built a 2.3 million square foot distribution facility in nearby McLeansville.
For Burlington, it represents only the second major distribution center among a number that have located along this two-county stretch of I85/40 in the past decade or so. Burlington is home to a Sheetz distribution center along Whites Kennel Road.
Meanwhile, other distribution centers include the Walmart center in Mebane, which is now in the process of construction which will double its original size, to about 1.1 million square feet.
Mebane is also home to a Chick-fil-A distribution center, as well as one for Medline (in western Orange County/eastern Mebane), and Stihl (also in western Orange/eastern Mebane); Graham is home to an Amazon distribution center, as well as a large Lidl grocery distribution center.
Both Graham and Mebane also have at least six newly-constructed, but not yet occupied buildings suitable to serve as distribution centers with between 210,000 to 579,000 square feet.
