IN Brief:
- SEKO is adding or expanding six facilities across Illinois, Ohio, and Texas.
- The named operations provide approximately 604,000 sq ft of logistics capacity.
- Services include fulfilment, air cargo screening, medical logistics, forwarding, and cross border freight.
SEKO Logistics is expanding its United States network with new and enlarged facilities across Illinois, Ohio, and Texas, adding approximately 604,000 sq ft of named capacity.
The programme covers fulfilment, freight forwarding, air cargo screening, white glove delivery, contract logistics, customs brokerage, specialised handling, and cross border distribution. SEKO’s wider US network now contains 64 locations connected with its international operations.
An 83,000 sq ft building at Elmhurst, Illinois, will act as the company’s central Midwest fashion hub. It combines outbound direct to consumer fulfilment and returns within the same operation and includes garment on hanger capability.
At Mount Prospect, SEKO has added more than 44,000 sq ft near Chicago O’Hare International Airport. The property supports cross docking, warehousing, consolidation, dedicated customer lanes, and a TSA regulated air cargo screening operation.
A 103,000 sq ft facility at Elk Grove Village will serve as a central US hub for direct to consumer brands. Its location close to O’Hare provides access to parcel carriers, road networks, and international air freight capacity.
The largest site is a 350,000 sq ft Cincinnati operation combining air, ocean, road, customs brokerage, and white glove services. The facility supports specialist requirements in high technology, medical equipment, and aerospace logistics.
Cincinnati provides access to highways, rail, the Ohio River, and Cincinnati Northern Kentucky International Airport. Much of the US population sits within a day’s road journey, allowing the site to support national distribution as well as regional freight.
In Texas, SEKO has added a 35,000 sq ft Houston facility close to George Bush Intercontinental Airport. The operation covers international and domestic freight, local cartage, and white glove delivery within a market that also connects to the Port of Houston and a substantial industrial economy.
A further 24,000 sq ft site at El Paso will serve West Texas and southern New Mexico. Its position on the I 10 corridor and close to the Mexican border supports high value, urgent, and specialist freight moving through regional and cross border supply chains.
Ian Oliver, President of North America Operations at SEKO Logistics, said: “North America is central to how SEKO serves customers around the world, and a stronger U.S. operation makes the entire network more capable.”
Specialist facilities replace the standard warehouse
Each site has been assigned a different operational role rather than reproducing a uniform warehouse model. Fashion fulfilment requires returns processing, product presentation, hanging garments, and high volume parcel despatch, while medical and aerospace cargo places greater emphasis on security, documentation, and controlled handling.
Air cargo screening and customs brokerage add regulated functions that cannot be created immediately at every property. Concentrating them near major gateways can improve equipment and staff utilisation, although the model depends on reliable transfers between regional warehouses, airports, and final delivery operations.
The Midwest remains attractive because it combines established manufacturing, a large consumer market, interstate connections, rail capacity, and major cargo airports. Nippon Express has also added automotive logistics capacity in Ohio, reinforcing the region’s role in industrial supply chains and national distribution.
Texas offers a different combination of population growth, manufacturing, ports, airports, energy activity, and trade with Mexico. Target’s Houston receive centre provides another example of distribution investment following the state’s expanding freight and consumer markets.
El Paso places SEKO close to production networks that extend across the US and Mexico. Automotive, electronics, aerospace, and industrial companies may move components repeatedly across the border, making customs performance and coordination between carriers, brokers, warehouses, and factories central to production continuity.
As logistics buildings take on more specialist tasks, the relationship between property and service becomes tighter. Screening equipment, returns areas, garment systems, secure zones, medical handling procedures, and white glove staging all influence the building specification and labour model.
The expanded network will require common systems capable of following inventory, customs data, customer instructions, and shipment milestones across several facilities and transport modes. A physical transfer between two SEKO sites should not create an information gap or force the customer to manage separate operating teams.
Maintaining service consistency across 64 US locations presents a parallel challenge. Local expertise remains valuable, but commercial commitments, data standards, escalation procedures, and performance measures need to remain recognisable across the national network.
SEKO’s investment adds space in markets where freight activity is concentrating, yet the individual functions assigned to each building are more significant than the combined floor area. The programme creates a group of connected specialist nodes rather than one national warehouse, placing coordination at the centre of the expansion.
