This 450,000 sf fully automated distribution center is in Hanover Pennsylvania a highly productive agricultural region of York County. The new facility is positioned on Kindig Lane directly across from the old Clark’s center that dates from the late 1960’s. The new center occupies 30 acres of former farmland is comprised of warehouse and corporate offices and serves as the primary distribution hub for Clarks.  

Nature is the intrinsic centerpiece of the area, and the design and building strategy attempt to promote that notion. The site plan, landscape and building design conceptually reinforces that the new structure belongs and has always been there. The building becomes a willing partner with the landscape, allowing nature to wrap its arms around the structure. Those arms of nature are the ridges, earth berms / banks, hallows, hedgerows employed in the site and landscape planning for the center. The use of a contextural material palette allows for the center to visually partner with its surroundings. The new building becomes a simple horizontal line, only slightly more defined than the lines formed by the cornrows of the area farms. The goal for the architectural expression of the center was to reinterpret the traditional Hanover building culture defined by the new facility’s parameters of program, use, building technology and corporate / community image. This project is a unabashedly a contemporary structure with a state of the art fully automated storage and retrieval system that allows Clarks to process over 50 million pairs of shoes annually supporting operations across North and Latin America.