DUNCANSVILLE - Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. will open a new Altoona Service Center on Monday at 147 Theater Drive, which will bring some needed jobs to the area.
The Thomasville, N.C.-based company plans to immediately hire 14 employees to support the new facility and expects to make 10 additional hires by September 2012, according to a company press release.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new facility will be held at 11 a.m. today.
The facility includes about 14,000 square feet of dock space and about 3,700 square feet of office space, said Robert Dexter, project superintendent with D.F. Chase Construction of Nashville, Tenn., general contractor for the estimated $3.5 million project.
The Altoona center is part of a $100 million to $120 million investment that Old Dominion is committing to real estate purchases and expansion projects in 2011. The local center will be one of seven Old Dominion centers in Pennsylvania, where trucks move more than 1.2 million tons of freight each business day.
"Altoona's location in central Pennsylvania along the Interstate 99 corridor - and in close proximity to Interstate 70 and Interstate 80 - will allow us to provide direct, next-day service to many locations that previously required a two-day shipping window," said Bob Rice, service center manager at the Altoona Service Center, in a statement. "The service center will allow us to continue growth in Pennsylvania, enabling us to provide our customers with more shipping options."
Altoona-Blair County Development Corp. helped Old Dominion find the location for its new terminal.
"Any time we can bring in some new jobs it is always a benefit to the area. It is a nice project and it gives us another carrier in the area," ABCD Corp. President and CEO Martin J. Marasco said. "Old Dominion saw some growth opportunities and decided to move forward with the project."
The company will provide service to nearly 75 cities in a 50-mile radius surrounding Altoona from the 40-door facility.
