Another cold-storage warehouse to open in Rockford area in 2025
About 50 new jobs will be coming to Belvidere next year when a $50 million cold-storage warehouse opens.
Milwaukee-based Midwest Refrigerated Services has broken ground at 1245 Irene Road in Belvidere for the company's new regional distribution center. The facility will be the company's second location in Belvidere following the September opening of its first warehouse at 1701 Industrial Dr.
While the Industrial Drive location was a building purchase and renovation project, the Irene Road location is new construction.
Midwest Refrigerated Services is a full-service third-party logistics provider serving the needs of the food industry.
"We are what's called a public refrigerated warehouse," President Mike Pokel said. "So, we will store for multiple customers who have requirements for refrigerated food product storage.
"It can be anything that requires refrigeration like dairy, meats, vegetables, anything that requires consumer packaged goods."
More: Belvidere General Mills warehouse was supposed to open months ago. Here's the hold up
Scheduled to open in March of 2025, the 200,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility will provide over 40,000 pallet positions of refrigerated storage.
Upon completion, the warehouse operation will add 50 full-time new jobs to Belvidere with a salary range of $20 per hour and up, Pokel said.
The site is served by the Union Pacific Railroad and has easy access to the tollway.
"As a logistics provider, site selection is of utmost importance to provide our customers with the most cost-effective solution to their supply chain needs," Pokel said. "Belvidere, and this site in particular, checks all the boxes."
Consolidated Construction based out of Appleton, Wisconsin, has been contracted to construct the facility.
Last year, Walmart announced plans to build a 1.2 million square-foot, high-tech cold-storage distribution center just north of the Chrysler Assembly plant. That facility is set to open in 2027 and will bring up to 700 jobs.
Chris Green is a Rockford Register Star general assignment reporter. He can be reached at 815-987-1241, via email at cgreen@rrstar.com and Twitter @chrisfgreen.
This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: A new cold-storage facility in Belvidere to bring 50 jobs
