VALLEY — The first building to go up in Valley Industrial Park, a distribution center for WestRock, won’t take long to build.

“We will have a 375,000-square-foot building for you in January 2019,” said Don Tuttle, Scannell’s vice-president of project management, at Wednesday morning’s groundbreaking ceremony.

“This is a fantastic spot,” he said. “I want to thank Mayor Leonard Riley of Valley and Mayor Kyle McCoy of Lanett. This has been a simple transaction for us.”

Neil Taylor, general manager for the Lanett WestRock plant said the distribution center Scannell will be building will be a world-class facility.

The general contractor for the project will be Evans General Contracting of Alpharetta, Ga. They will be hiring local subcontractors to take care of portions of the work that will be done.

“We are on a schedule to be completed in January,” said Superintendent Clay McCord.

Founded in 1990, Scannell Properties is headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind., with regional offices in Alexandria, Va., Chicago, Ill., Denver, Colo., Kansas City, Mo., Minneapolis, Minn., and the San Francisco Bay area. The company is led by its founder and principal, Robert Scannell.

Scannell Properties is a privately-owned real estate development and investment company that focuses on build-to-suit and speculative development projects throughout the U.S. and Canada. The company has received numerous awards for its projects. A recent industrial park project in Raleigh, N.C., for example, won the top award in the flex/warehouse category.