Facility spans area of 14 soccer fields

Infrastructure ready for large customers and growing cargo volumes

Nationwide US delivery possible within 1-2 days via multimodal network

An exterior view of CJ Logistics' Elwood logistics center in the United States [CJ Logistics]
An exterior view of CJ Logistics' Elwood logistics center in the United States [CJ Logistics]

CJ Logistics has launched operations at a new logistics center in Elwood, Illinois, in partnership with the Korea Ocean Business Corporation, accelerating its expansion in North America.

The company announced Wednesday that it had completed construction of the Elwood facility and begun full operations. Located near Chicago — the logistics hub of the US Midwest — the center covers a total floor area of about 102,775 square meters, roughly equivalent to 14 soccer fields.

The facility is equipped with infrastructure designed to handle large cargo volumes efficiently and adapt flexibly to future growth in customers and freight. It features 130 loading docks that allow heavy trucks to load and unload simultaneously, enabling high-volume cargo processing even during peak hours. A clear height of 12 meters allows for efficient vertical stacking throughout the warehouse.

The center's location also gives it strong competitive standing as a regional logistics hub with nationwide reach. The BNSF and Union Pacific rail terminals — operated by two of the largest freight rail companies in the United States — are situated near the Elwood facility. By combining rail and major highway connections, the center can deliver cargo anywhere in the United States within one to two days.

The Elwood center is also pursuing Foreign Trade Zone certification, which would give companies targeting the North American market greater flexibility in managing local inventory and responding to demand.

A Foreign Trade Zone, or FTZ, is a regime under which the US government grants special treatment — including storage, processing and re-export — for goods brought in from abroad within designated zones. Companies can import products or components in advance, store them, and then process and ship them according to actual orders and local demand. This reduces supply lead times compared with a make-to-order model and allows for more agile responses to shifts in demand.

Building on these strengths, CJ Logistics plans to develop the Elwood center into a strategic hub supporting the North American supply chains of Korean advanced industries, including the battery sector.

Advanced industries rely on globally sourced raw materials and components and require timely supply in line with local production and demand fluctuations, making reliable inventory management and fast delivery essential. The Elwood center plans to leverage its large storage capacity, nationwide US transport network and FTZ-enabled operational advantages to serve a broad range of advanced-industry logistics needs — including battery raw materials — and expand its customer base in those sectors.

CJ Logistics has also been operating the Secaucus center in New Jersey since last October, another jointly developed facility built with the Korea Ocean Business Corporation. The Secaucus center covers about 10,000 square meters and sits roughly 20 kilometers from Port Newark and 16 kilometers from Newark Liberty International Airport, with Interstate 95 within about 5 kilometers. Its proximity to New York — one of the world's largest consumer markets — makes it an ideal base for import and export logistics on the US East Coast.

CJ Logistics plans to use the Midwest Elwood center and the East Coast Secaucus center as twin pillars to strengthen its North American logistics business. The company aims to link hubs across major logistics zones to build a network spanning all of North America, and to capture growing supply chain demand as more Korean companies expand their presence in the United States.

"The Elwood and Secaucus centers, built jointly with the Korea Ocean Business Corporation, represent strategic logistics infrastructure that provides meaningful, on-the-ground support for Korean companies' North American supply chains," said Jonathan Song, head of CJ Logistics' global business division. "We will build on these key logistics hubs in the US Midwest and East Coast to sharpen our competitiveness in North America and establish ourselves as a core supply chain partner supporting the global growth of customers across advanced industries, including batteries, and beyond."

Meanwhile, CJ Logistics Chief Executive Shin Young-su recently held a town hall meeting for the second half of 2026 at the company's headquarters in Jongno-gu, Seoul, where he said the company would "aggressively target strategic markets including the United States and India to accelerate the company's growth."


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