Lego announces plans for massive distribution center in Prince George

Lego is planning to open a 2 million-square-foot warehouse in Prince George, which comes as one of several local projects by the Danish toymaker. Pictured is the company’s temporary packaging plant in Chesterfield. (BizSense file)

As it pieces together a $1 billion factory in Chesterfield, Lego Group has another sizable build in the works in a neighboring county.

The Danish toymaker announced plans this week to build a $366 million warehouse and distribution facility in the Crosspointe Business Centre in Prince George County.

The 2 million-square-foot project would rise on a 200-plus-acre site at 8800 Wells Station Road, across from the former Rolls-Royce manufacturing facility.

Construction on the warehouse is expected to start later this year, according to a company news release. It’s slated to open in 2027.

Lego signed a build-to-suit lease for the warehouse with Crosspointe Business Centre, a joint venture between The Silverman Group, headquartered in New Jersey, and Texas-based Hillwood Investment Properties.

The warehouse would be operated by a third-party logistics company and is expected to employ more than 300 people, according to Lego. It would be Lego’s second distribution center in the Americas, adding to one in Texas.

More details about the Prince George project were unavailable. A Lego spokesperson declined to comment beyond the news release.

The planned distribution center would work alongside Lego’s 1.7 million-square-foot manufacturing facility under construction in Chesterfield’s Meadowville Technology Park. The plant is expected to start production in 2027 and will make Lego bricks and package boxed sets. The company is already operating a temporary packaging facility at 1600 Ruffin Mill Road in Chesterfield.

Lego said the project in Prince George is part of its strategy of placing manufacturing and distribution facilities together and near major markets.

“The regional distribution center will bring greater flexibility to our network, ensuring we are well positioned to support long-term growth in the Americas. Together with our future Virginia factory, the (warehouse) will shorten our supply chain in the region,” Lego COO Carsten Rasmussen said in a prepared statement.

Lego and Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office announced the Prince George project Thursday. Youngkin approved a $2.5 million grant from the Commonwealth’s Opportunity Fund to help Prince George land the project. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership, Virginia’s Gateway Region and the county worked together to secure the project.

The project is eligible for benefits from the Port of Virginia Economic and Infrastructure Development Grant Program and the Virginia Jobs Investment Program.

The Lego warehouse would be the first new construction at Crosspointe following the exit of Rolls-Royce from the center in 2021. The British aerospace manufacturer originally had plans for a multi-building campus that fell through and left the 900-acre property largely undeveloped.

Prince George Economic Development Director Yoti Jabri said the county’s efforts to prepare the center for Rolls-Royce’s vision, with $35 million in infrastructure and site improvements, put the property in a good position to attract Lego and potentially other businesses.

“That goes to show you those previous investments our Board of Supervisors and EDA made are paying off. Back in 2009, we took out some bonds to get that site basically shovel-ready to land projects. It was for Rolls-Royce, but now they’ve exited and we’re marketing to other businesses. Luckily, we get someone with a name and very high reputation like Lego,” he said.

Prince George is planning to offer local incentives for the Lego project to serve as a match for state incentives. The local incentives are still being finalized, Jabri said.

The Lego project is Centerpointe’s second major economic development project announced during Youngkin’s term. In late 2023, the governor’s office said that PGT Innovations would open a $54 million glass production plant at the 292,000-square-foot manufacturing facility formerly occupied by Rolls-Royce, but Jabri said those plans ultimately never materialized.

The old Rolls-Royce building appears to be occupied by at least one company, a solar panel installer and provider called Sol Solar. The Commonwealth Center for Advanced Manufacturing, a nonprofit research group, operates in a building on the edge of the center.

Jabri said there’s been strong interest in companies looking to potentially move into the center, particularly from pharmaceutical and biotech firms drawn to the region by the Civica and Phlow facilities in nearby Petersburg.

“We host a lot of site visitors out there. It’s really an ideal location for bigger types of manufacturers or with the pharma and biotech industries popping up in Petersburg, we’ve been getting a lot of those projects as well.”

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