Distribution Center

Small-package carrier FedEx Ground will begin building a 218,000-square-foot distribution center in Carson next week, the company said Thursday. Set to open in the Dominguez Technology Center in late 2005, the facility is part of a $1.8-billion nationwide network expansion that will double the company's average daily capacity to 5.1 million packages by 2010. The local facility will replace a Torrance operation that opened in 1995. No layoffs are planned.

99 Cents Only Stores, struggling with a variety of woes including problems at its Los Angeles distribution center, Friday lowered its second-quarter sales and earnings projections. The City of Commerce-based retailer, which sells everything for less than a dollar, said it expected to earn 4 cents to 7 cents a share in the quarter ending June 30, instead of the 19 cents it had predicted earlier. The reduction was the company's second downward earnings revision for the period.

Continuing its trail of red ink, Gateway Inc. posted a wider third-quarter loss because of a nearly 20% plunge in revenue, sending the company's shares sliding in after-hours trading. The Poway, Calif.-based computer and consumer electronics merchant recorded $883 million in sales in the three months ended Sept. 30, down from $1.1 billion a year earlier. It had a net loss of $139 million, or 43 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $50 million, or 15 cents, a year earlier.

Kmart Corp., already in the midst of a massive effort to improve its stores, said Thursday that it plans to restructure its supply chain operations. As part of the restructuring, the discount retailer will move a distribution center from Carson to Mira Loma, Calif., and another from North Bergen, N.J., to Chambersburg, Pa.

Ford Motor Co. said it will add 11 parts distribution centers in the next three years to speed delivery of replacement parts to dealer repair shops. The new outlets will more than double Ford's 10-center system to 21. The first new center is scheduled to open in Memphis, Tenn., by January, the company said. U.S. auto makers are working to speed parts deliveries to avoid losing customers to car repair chains. U.S. sales of cars and light trucks reached a record 17.

Children's Place Retail Stores Inc. said it is opening a new distribution center in Ontario in the chain's West Coast expansion efforts. The 250,000-square-foot facility will supply 120 stores in the West by the end of the year and about 200 by the end of 2002, the children's clothing retailer said.

Developer Overton, Moore & Associates Inc. has completed the 547,000-square-foot first phase of its 1.9-million-square-foot Port Los Angeles Distribution Center at Gaffey Street and Westmont Drive in San Pedro.

Everybody here has a story about a truck. There's the one about horses rearing up and tossing their riders, startled by a semi rumbling through a residential neighborhood that was once a quiet, rural haven. About kids forced to play their street hockey games between two enormous trailers. About the 18-wheeler that clipped the curb of Penny Newman's quarter-acre corner lot in nearby Glen Avon.