Logistics firm on hiring spree settles into larger downtown digs

Transportation and logistics firm Direct Connect Logistix Inc. has relocated its downtown headquarters to larger space as part of its plan to add as many as 90 employees by the end of 2020.

Founded in 2009, DCL has grown from two employees to 85, prompting its move late last year from the Stutz building to 14,000 square feet in the Cosmopolitan on the Canal mixed-use building at the northwest quadrant of West Michigan Street and North Senate Avenue.

DCL will mark the move and jobs announcement with a Friday morning ribbon-cutting ceremony at its new headquarters. Indiana Secretary of Commerce Secretary Jim Schellinger and Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett are scheduled to attend, along with DCL co-founder and president Greg Humrichouser.

DCL is investing more than $2 million in its new headquarters. To help offset costs, the Indiana Economic Development Corp. is offering the firm up to $630,000 in state tax credits. The incentives hinge on the company's ability to add 90 jobs to the workforce of 59 it had in May 2016, when it received initial approval for the deal from the IEDC.

The company has already added 26 of those jobs, bringing employment to 85. The company is adding the jobs in operations, account management, information technology and business development.

The IEDC also agreed to provide the company up to $40,000 in training grants.

With 72 employees at the end of 2016, DCL ranked as the Indianapolis area’s 22nd largest logistics provider, according to IBJ’s most recent Book of Lists.

Many of DCL’s customers ship food because its a product that's always in demand, Humrichouser told IBJ in 2013, when the business ranked fourth on IBJ's annual list of fastest-growing private companies in the area.

“We focus on food because it’s not going anywhere,” he said. “And food is time-sensitive. Most of the stuff is perishable. It’s not a load of plastic they can have sit on the dock until they get the price they want. This stuff expires.”