Gray Customer Academy Sports + Outdoors to Bring Distribution Center to Tennessee

Academy, Ltd., a premier sports, outdoor and lifestyle retailer, announced that it will open a distribution center in Cookeville, Tenn. The new 1,600,000 s.f. facility will be the company’s third and is necessary due to Academy’s continued growth.

The Cookeville distribution center is said to create some 700 jobs over the next five years. Sitting on more than 250 acres, the center will be the largest distribution facility in Tennessee under one roof.

Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam has said the new facility will have a “positive economic impact on the state of Tennessee for many years to come.”

Academy Sports + Outdoors selected Gray Construction to design and build its new distribution center. Academy is a repeat customer of Gray with the companies also partnering on a distribution center in Jeffersonville, Ga., and retail facilities in Decatur, Ala. and Prattville, Ala., among others.

Construction will begin this month on the Academy’s new distribution center, and the facility is scheduled to be operational in early 2016.

Academy Sports + Outdoors is a premier sports, outdoor and lifestyle retailer with a broad assortment of quality hunting, fishing and camping equipment and gear along with sports and leisure products, footwear, apparel and much more. The Texas-based company operates 178 stores throughout Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.

Gray Construction, a nationally ranked engineering, architecture and construction firm, has over 54 years of experience in manufacturing, automotive, food and beverage, distribution, hospitality and retail facility construction. Currently, Gray has several large projects that are underway or recently completed including: a Michelin Earthmover tire manufacturing plant in Anderson, S.C.; a Caterpillar Inc. manufacturing facility near Athens, Ga.; a Siemens gas turbine plant in Charlotte, N.C.; an Ascena  distribution facility in Etna, Ohio; a Roxul, Inc. manufacturing facility in Byhalia, Miss.; a manufacturing plant for ZF Transmissions in Gray Court, S.C.; a Meijer, Inc. consumer goods distribution facility in Pleasant Prairie, Wisc.; and a Walmart Supercenter expansion in Bakersfield, Calif.

If you have distribution center plant construction needs, please contact Steve Summers, Executive Vice President at ssummers@gray.com. Or, contact Jeff Bischoff, Senior Vice President, Business Development at jbischoff@gray.com.