Saks to close distribution center in Aberdeen next year

Saks Fifth Avenue plans to close its Aberdeen distribution center early next year and lay off about 150 workers.

The warehouse at 500 Hickory Drive will shut down in phases between March and August, the company said in a notice filed with the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. The upscale department store retailer informed Harford County officials of its plans last week.

The private, nonprofit Susquehanna Workforce Network is helping workers find new jobs, said Cindy Mumby, a Harford County government spokeswoman.

A spokeswoman for Hudson’s Bay Co., parent of Saks Inc., did not respond Monday to a request for comment.

Department store retailers, like Saks and Toronto-based Hudson’s Bay, which is also the parent of Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue Off Fifth, have been struggling with shifting consumer shopping patterns and the decline of some shopping malls.

The Saks warehouse, which once employed more than 600 people, has pared its workforce over the years. The facility laid off 191 employees in 2014 after Saks Inc. was acquired by Hudson’s Bay. At the time, it moved some of the work to Hudson’s Bay’s warehouse in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. Saks had previously laid off 223 workers, in May 2012 .

For their part, Harford County officials are optimistic the vacated warehouse will find a new use.

“We believe that it won’t be difficult for the space to be filled,” Mumby said. “We’ve had a lot of action in terms of warehouse distribution space in the county.”

The Container Store and two other companies announced leases of a combined 1.5 million square feet of county warehouse space in August, moves that are expected to create up to 400 new jobs. The Container Store will move into a 600,000-square-foot building that will be constructed in the Eastgate 95 industrial park in Perryman and serve as the chain’s East Coast distribution center. Kuehne + Nagel, a logistics firm, announced plans to move into a 656,880square-foot building across the street.

And PrimeSource, a national building products distributor, signed a lease for 250,000 square feet in a building to be constructed on Advantage Avenue in Aberdeen. As of October, Harford County had an industrial vacancy rate of 4.5 percent.