WALCOTT — Drivers cruising near the Iowa 80 Truckstop in the past year have likely noticed a massive red and tan building under construction.
The Iowa80 Truckstop opened its own distribution center in January at 510 Sterling Drive, behind the museum. It has a total of 251,000 total square feet of warehousing space, with a big chunk of that — 117,180 square feet — to be used to house trucking accessories for the online trucking accessories superstore, Iowa80.com, and for the retail businesses inside the truck stop.
At a ribbon cutting Tuesday, Delia Meier, president of Iowa80.com, said the building was built extra-large on purpose, with the intention of bringing in new businesses to Walcott. The remaining 128,959 square feet is available for lease or open for third party fulfillment.
The retail business began in 2000 and is the "e-commerce arm" of the truck stop, said general manager Deanna Slack. The company celebrated its 20th anniversary during the COVID-19 pandemic, she said, but it was not all bad news.
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The new facility greatly expands on their previous capacity. Featured in the new Iowa80.com Distribution Center are 10 state-of-the-art loading docks, 33,371 linear feet of racking, 32’ high ceilings, and a fireproof room of 9,400 square feet. It is also fully air conditioned.
"During the pandemic trucking thrived and America remembered how important the professional driver is to our world," Slack said. "We took this time to begin implanting our vision for a bigger and better installation system."
Plans for the building were finalized in 2022 and the first order was shipped out on Jan. 16 of this year. In addition to the Walcott stores, the new distribution center will fulfill orders for online trucking accessory orders, as well as ship product to the brick-and-mortar stores operated by Iowa 80 Group including Kenly 95 Petro in North Carolina and Joplin 44 Petro in Missouri.
Moving into the building, however, was not as easy as it sounds. Slack said the big move was scheduled for Jan. 12, when Iowa saw blizzard conditions with nearly a foot of snow and record-cold temperatures.
"Everyone showed up. They somehow got here and worked all weekend to move product. And today it's 72 and another record, so I'm going to call it every time," she said with a laugh. "It goes to show the Iowa strong work ethic of Iowa80."