Pallets across Davis County, from Woods Cross to the Freeport Center

A strip between lake and mountain

The county covers about 634 square miles, more than half of it water. People live along I-15, which runs through the middle of the county, and along US-89 on the east side.

Legacy Parkway (SR-67) runs from Farmington south to I-215 near the Salt Lake County line, SR-193 crosses Layton and Clearfield past Hill Air Force Base, and FrontRunner commuter rail stops in Woods Cross, Farmington, Layton and Clearfield. A 2004 survey found that 42.3 percent of residents worked in another county, so the freight docks are fewer than the homes.

Where the docks are

Hill Air Force Base

Hill is the largest employer in the county, with nearly 23,000 military and civilian personnel, about 12 percent of the county's economy. Defence and aerospace suppliers around it often ship parts on specified sizes, which is where the aerospace industry comes in.

ZIP codes

Davis County requests use ZIPs such as 84054, 84010, 84087, 84040, 84041, 84015, 84016 and 84089. The Freeport Center itself is in 84016, while Layton uses 84040 and 84041.

A county of corridors

Davis County is a strip of cities between the lake and the mountains. Freight moves along I-15, and docks cluster near the two big employment centres, Hill Air Force Base and the Freeport Center. A request from a Davis County business can name the city and the nearest freeway exit.

• North end: Layton and Clearfield, with the base and its suppliers.
• South end: Woods Cross and North Salt Lake, close to Salt Lake City.

North Salt Lake

North Salt Lake is the first Davis County city north of Salt Lake City, about 8.5 square miles in ZIP 84054. It has no large industrial park of its own, so most pallet requests here are small and sit close to larger docks in neighbouring cities.

• ZIP: 84054

A small city with big neighbours

Woods Cross lies to the north, Bountiful to the northeast, and the Salt Lake City line to the south. The Great Salt Lake, which gives the city its name, is among its neighbours.

I-15 meets I-215 near North Salt Lake, with SR-93 and SR-68 interchanges close by. That puts the city a short drive from the Northwest Quadrant docks and from the Davis County parks further north.

Pallets for an unlisted industrial base

A small business, a garage-door shop or a retail back lot here has a handful of pallets and little room for them. Stacks outside get wet during the roughly November to April snow season, which turns decent Grade A stock into a mold problem.

Woods Cross

Woods Cross is a city of 11,410 people on the Wasatch Front in southeastern Davis County, in ZIPs 84010 and 84087. Its pallet traffic is modest, and a request should lean on a clear count and a description of the building.

• ZIPs: 84010, 84087

Where it sits

Woods Cross borders West Bountiful to the north, Bountiful to the east and North Salt Lake to the south. FrontRunner commuter rail stops in the city, and I-15 runs close by.

The refinery corridor

Utah's five oil refineries sit in Davis and northern Salt Lake counties. A refinery operates in Woods Cross, and its crude oil capacity is given as 45,000 barrels per day. Any industrial yard produces an odd stream of crating and skids. Sites like that tend to produce irregular, heavy-duty wooden bases rather than clean 48 x 40 stringer pallets.

Layton

Layton is the largest city in Davis County, about 25 miles north of Salt Lake City and 15 miles south of Ogden. Its docks serve aerospace and defence suppliers and business parks near Hill Air Force Base, in ZIPs 84040 and 84041.

• ZIPs: 84040, 84041
• I-15 exits: Antelope Dr, Hillfield Rd, Layton Pkwy
• Neighbour: Hill Air Force Base
• Retail sales, 2014: $1.34 billion

Roads in, roads through

I-15 splits Layton down the middle with three interchanges: Antelope Drive, Hillfield Road and Layton Parkway. US-89 runs along the eastern edge under the Wasatch slope. SR-177 crosses the west side, and SR-193 runs east to west across the north, past the south gate of Hill Air Force Base, linking US-89 to I-15 in Clearfield.

Business parks and the base

Hill AFB was created in 1940 and sits on Layton's northern edge. The city lists the East Gate Business Park among its economic development offerings. Layton posted $1.34 billion in retail sales in 2014, the second-largest market north of Salt Lake City.

Retail volume produces receiving docks for Layton Hills Mall, the restaurants along Restaurant Row and the shops around them. Those docks create moderate piles of mixed pallets that suit a pallet removal request. Defence and aerospace suppliers, meanwhile, ship components on specified skids, and some use 48 x 45 stock, the size the North American trade lists for the automotive industry; see the 48 x 45.

Freeport Center

The Freeport Center is a 680-acre industrial campus in Clearfield, ZIP 84016, with 78 buildings and about 70 companies. Because most buildings have a rail dock on one side and a truck dock on the other, pallet requests from here are often large and recurring.

• ZIP: 84016
• Buildings: 78, over 7,000,000 sq ft
• Companies: About 70; roughly 7,000 jobs
• Rail: Union Pacific

From supply depot to freight park

The U.S. Navy commissioned the site as the Clearfield Naval Supply Depot on April 10, 1943, and decommissioned it in 1962. Private firms then moved into the buildings. Today the property totals more than 7,000,000 square feet of space, with buildings from 4,000 to 400,000 square feet.

Why the dock layout matters

Union Pacific serves the campus. A boxcar can unload at one face of a building while trucks load at the other, so pallets move in two streams: rail freight that arrives palletised, and truck freight going out. At the Freeport Center the side a stack stands on, and the way a forklift reaches it, decide how it moves.

Who works at the campus

Northrop Grumman produces carbon composite parts for aircraft there.