UPS advances Saturday delivery and e-commerce

ATLANTA, GA-UPS is modifying a 618,000-sq.-ft. package-processing hub in Goodyear, Arizona and it’s another sign of how e-commerce is replacing traditional business practice. The $180-million investment expands UPS’s capability for Saturday ground delivery and pickup service, which began last month in Mesa, Arizona and expanded into Phoenix last week. The community of Goodyear is a west of Phoenix near the Loop 303 Freeway and I-10.  

The phased hub construction project sits on 140 acres. A portion of the building is expected to begin operating later this year in time for the busy holiday season to provide additional processing and efficient automated sorting capacity for lightweight small packages typical of e-commerce that are moving throughout Arizona and the Southwest.  

With its planned completion in late 2019, the new facility will showcase more than 970,000 square feet of advanced operational technologies and sortation equipment under roof and bring more than 1,500 jobs to the Goodyear area.  

“UPS is a leader in operational efficiency and flexibility and is quick to adapt the UPS® network to changing needs of shippers and consumers. We’re investing for growth and to give opportunity to our people to build skills for tomorrow’s economy,” said Ken Cherry, president of the UPS Desert Mountain district that includes Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

In each of the next three years, processing capacity is expected to increase as the Goodyear site build-out includes infrastructure for alternative fuels, a UPS Customer Center and local route dispatch for the familiar brown package delivery trucks.