A gas station and convenience store chain has opened three new distribution centers – including one in the St. Louis area – to supply its more than 1,000 stores in the Midwest.

Circle K, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, said Thursday it has signed lease agreements for the three sites in an effort to optimize its supply chain and improve efficiency. In addition to its new site at Hazelwood Trade Port, the new distribution centers will be located in Otsego, Minnesota, and Lockbourne, Ohio.

The three sites average 266,000 square feet, the company said in a news release. The Hazelwood site is 211,000 square feet, the company said.

The centers will distribute goods to roughly 1,600 Circle K and Holiday stores in 14 states with national and privately branded snacks, candy, beverages, tobacco/nicotine and other items not directly delivered to stores, Circle K said. The chain rebranded 132 Shell or Mobil stores in the St. Louis and southern Illinois region to Circle K in 2019.

The new centers bring Circle K’s total number of distribution centers to five, sending goods to a total 2,600 company-owned stores, the company said. The other two sites are located in San Antonio and Phoenix and supply its stores in parts of Texas, as well as Arizona and Nevada, according to the release. The company also has a distribution center in Laval, Quebec, that supplies Circle K and Couche-Tard stores in eastern Canada.

The company will contract out all warehouse and distribution services at the new sites to third-party logistics providers, as it does at the existing centers. It expects to staff the facilities with a range of 140 to 230 employees. Contracts will be awarded to logistics partners by the end of this year, and the distribution centers could start operations by late 2025, the company said.

The TradePort in St. Louis, a project that Kansas City-based industrial developer NorthPoint has been building out since 2018, is a 336-acre master-planned industrial park located off Highway 370, near other industrial parks such as Park 370 and the new Hazelwood Business Park built inside the former St. Louis Mills mall.

“We have a long, successful history of operating dedicated warehouse and distribution centers in Texas and Arizona, with the support of strong and capable 3PL partners,” Trey Powell Sr., vice president of global merchandising for Circle K, said in a statement. “Expanding this hybrid distribution model into the Midwest will materially improve the control we have over key parts of the supply chain, enable further differentiation of retail programs and improve our inventory management processes and capabilities.”

Commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield represented Circle K for real estate analysis, lease negotiations and contracts, the company said. Ryan Companies US Inc. is Circle K’s national construction and architecture partner.

Circle K is owned by a Canadian convenience store chain, Quebec-based Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., which submitted two takeover bids to the parent company of 7-Eleven earlier this year, raising its bid as part of a bidding battle to $47 billion after its original $39 billion offer was rejected. If the two stores combined, they would operate nearly 100,000 shops.