Con-way Freight announced a major investment in the Fond du Lac, Wis. community with plans to build a new 96-door, 47,000-square-foot freight service center in the city.

The new $8 million facility will serve as the local hub from which the company will provide daily freight pickup and delivery services, connecting the greater Fond du Lac metropolitan area with one-, two- and three-day service points in Con-way Freight's nationwide network, as well as Mexico and Canada.

The company has selected a 21-acre property in Fond du Lac's Fox Ridge Business Park for the new facility.

The expansion will replace an existing 25-door service center at 736 Morris Street where the company has been for 27 years. Once completed, the expanded facility is expected to provide additional capacity, operating efficiencies and flexibility as it will consolidate smaller service center operations in Fond du Lac, Sheboygan and Neenah into a larger, more cost-effective single facility.

The expanded operation inFond du Lac is expected to employ 100 workers in jobs such as driver sales representatives, operations support, sales, customer service and administration. Con-way Freight currently employs 45 at its existingFond du Lac location.

Con-way Freight expects to close on the property next month. Following a ground-breaking ceremony, construction is planned to commence in June and be completed in March 2014.

While the new center will open with 96 dock doors, it is designed to expand to 120 doors. The company currently handles more than 575,000 pounds of freight per day out of its existing facility. The new site provides the ability to expand those volumes to well over 1.6 million pounds per day. The facility also will have a 6,500-square-foot office and on-site fueling for its trucks.

Today, Con-way Freight operates a fleet of 18 commercial truck-tractors and 65 freight trailers from its current Fond du Lac facility.  The expanded operation will increase those numbers to 50 trucks and 160 trailers. Con-way Freight in Fond du Lac currently serves more than 1,500 businesses in the greater Fond du Lac metropolitan area and surrounding communities. Nationwide, the company operates a fleet of 9,600 truck-tractors and 25,000 freight trailers.

Con-way Freight provides some of the fastest service over the longest market lanes of any trucking company in the state. From Fond du Lac, next-day delivery is provided for all of Wisconsin, west to Sioux Falls, S.D. east to Cleveland, Ohio and south to Louisville, Ky. The company also provides direct service into Canada through the Windsor, Ontario border gateway. Second-day service extends west into Denver, Colo., east to Boston, Mass. and south to New Orleans, La.