Apparel importer to set up shop

One of the region’s largest vacant industrial buildings is set to spring back to life with about 200 employees by next May.

Canadian apparel importer Gildan Activewear, which recently paid $20 million for the former Mikasa property on Clements Ferry Road, said it is shutting warehouses in Alabama and Virginia and consolidating their operations at its newly acquired Charleston distribution center.

The 580,000-square-foot structure, not including upper-level mezzanines and office space, will be used at first to handle imported socks and underwear for delivery to mass merchandisers and other retailers.

“Right now, our retail operations are fragmented,” said Genevieve Gosselin, the Montreal-based company’s director of corporate communications. “So we want to bring everything back together and generate cost reductions but also efficiencies by bringing everyone under one building.”

She also said the warehouse gives Gildan ample room to expand.

“This building is very large, so we’ll be able to bring more additional capacity, depending on the programs,” she said Friday.

The warehouses that Gildan is closing are in Fort Payne, Ala., and Martinsville, Va. Employees were notified of the consolidation this week. Gosselin said the affected workers are being offered jobs in Charleston and will take priority over other applicants.

The company will continue to serve its wholesale customers from awarehouse in Eden, N.C.

Gildan said it uses a combination of undisclosed East Coast ports to bring in its goods, which are mostly made in Central America and the Caribbean basin.

“We are considering the Port of Charleston,” Gosselin said.

Gildan’s new distribution center cost about $60 million to build and equip with high-tech racks and a precision flooring system when a Mikasa affiliate completed it in 1997. A decade later and under new ownership, Mikasa, a major importer of china and other tabletop goods, targeted the warehouse and adjoining retail store for closure.

The building, which is on an 81-acre site, had been on the market for about two years. It first was listed for $41.5 million.