Walmart opens massive new distribution centre in Surrey's Campbell Heights

Aerial view of the recently built Walmart Distribution Centre in Campbell Heights North, Surrey. (Stuart Olson/RiteTech Construction)

After reaching substantial completion last year, Walmart Canada officially opened its major new distribution centre this week serving its entire British Columbia market in Surrey.

The 300,000 sq ft facility was built on a 27-acre site at 19525 24 Avenue in the Campbell Heights industrial business park.

The state-of-the-art Surrey Grocery Distribution Centre will store and supply pantry items and fresh and frozen grocery goods to 45 Walmart stores across BC, eliminating the company’s previous dependences on long-haul freight trips from distribution facilities in Alberta.

This facility not only improves speed, efficiency, and accuracy, but also helps reduce the company’s carbon footprint while also creating 250 jobs once the facility is fully operational.

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This is a stacked facility that reduces about half the land area that would be required for a traditional facility layout. This is enabled by the facility’s use of Witron’s automated storage system technology, which allows goods to be stacked in a high bay configuration, with racking reaching as high as 66 ft. The facility will be able to process 150,000 orders per day that will be delivered to BC stores.

Walmart Surrey Grocery Distribution Centre 19525 24 Avenue Campbell Heights

Inside the high-stack area of Walmart Canada’s new Surrey Grocery Distribution Centre at 19525 24 Avenue in Campbell Heights. (Walmart Canada)

The facility is also designed with a number of sustainability features, including LED lighting and smart controls, which can reduce energy use by 70%, as well as efficient and greener refrigeration systems, an HVAC system that reclaims heat rejected from the refrigeration system, special fans to maintain temperature throughout the complex, natural water filtration systems to protect local waterways and fish ecosystems, a zero-waste facility strategy, and 18,000 new on-site plants. Additionally, the facility will be a future hub for Walmart’s electric-battery fleet of semi-trucks and a fully-electric yard truck fleet.

Walmart’s $175 million investment in building the Surrey facility is part of its $3.5 billion strategy to improve its supply chain logistics across the country.

“We’re incredibly proud of our new sustainability-focused and technology-enabled distribution centre in Surrey. Facilities like this one are an investment in the community, our associates and customers and allow our suppliers to get their products into the hands of Canadians across the country even faster,” said Horacio Barbeito, president and CEO, of Walmart Canada.

John Bayliss, executive vice-president and the Chief Transformation Officer, also deemed this the most technologically-advanced facility for Walmart Canada.

Walmart currently employs over 12,000 people across BC.

Campbell Heights’s industrial lands span about 1,900 acres. The area will be fully developed by the end of this decade with large format warehouses and other industrial businesses employing thousands of people. Major businesses established in the area over the past decade include distributions hubs for Save On Foods, Loblaws, Sobeys, and Amazon.

Last month, Metro Vancouver Regional District provided the City of Surrey with final approval to allow a 400-acre southern extension of Campbell Heights’ developable area for mixed-employment uses. The region continues to see extraordinary demand for industrial space, which has pushed industrial space vacancies to a record low of 0.9% earlier this year.

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