New LEGO store, facilities make their way to Central Virginia, providing over 1,000 jobs

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- The first-ever LEGO store is making its way to Henrico County's Short Pump Town Center and could potentially make "everything awesome."

Details on when the location will be open and the specifics on where it will be are still unknown -- however, as for the new manufacturing center, it will be located in Chesterfield County.

According to the LEGO Group, the 1.7 million square foot factory center in Chesterfield is set to employ over 1,760 people and is designed to operate as a carbon-neutral facility.

One-hundred percent of the facility's daily energy needs will be matched by renewable energy needs that will be matched by renewable energy generated by an onsite solar park. Along with the onsite solar park, the facility will also be designed to mitigate energy consumption and use non-renewable resources, according to the LEGO Group.

“This is an exciting step for the LEGO Group. More and more families are falling in love with LEGO® building and we are looking forward to making LEGO bricks in the US, one of our largest markets. The location in Virginia allows us to build a solar park which supports our sustainability ambitions and provides easy links to country-wide transportation networks. We are also looking forward to creating fantastic employment opportunities for the people of Virginia.” LEGO Group CEO Niels B. Christiansen

The Virginia factory will be the LEGO Group's seventh factory worldwide and only the second in the Americas. The company currently has a manufacturing site in Monterey, Mexico which primarily supplies to the U.S. market -- however, it will be expanded to meet the growing demands of LEGO products.

Construction on the new 340-square-foot Chesterfield facility is set to commence in Fall 2022, with production planning to start in the second half of 2025, according to LEGO.

Chief Operations Officer of the LEGO Group, Carsten Rasmussen, said in a statement:

“Our factories are located close to our biggest markets which shortens the distance our products have to travel. This allows us to rapidly respond to changing consumer demand and helps manage our carbon footprint. Our new factory in the US and expanded capacity at our existing site in Mexico means we will be able to best support long-term growth in the Americas. We are fortunate to find a location where we can begin construction quickly and create temporary capacity in under two years.” Carsten Rasmussen, Chief Operations Officer of the LEGO Group

The new factory is seeking to use state-of-the-art technology to process and package LEGO products to ensure they meet the company's "rigorous safety and quality" requirements.

“Our bricks are made to last for generations, so we need skilled employees trained to work with precision moulding technology," Rasmussen shared.

As LEGOs continue to grow increasingly popular, factories in continents like Europe and countries such as China were expanded in 2021. The company also has plans to expand the factory into Vietnam to support future growth in Asia as well.

Along with the Chesterfield factory, LEGO also announced it will be building a distribution center in Prince George County and is expected to be operational in 2027, with operations starting later this year.

The LEGO Group will invest $366 million to build and operate the 200,000-square-foot regional distribution center (RDC).

The building of this new infrastructure is part of the LEGO company's global supply strategy to place factories and distribution centers closer to major markets so it can ensure capacity to support growth within that region.

The RDC will be the second in the company's Americas network, according to LEGO, and will join the current center in Fort Worth, TX. The Virginia RDC factory will create over 1,700 jobs as well once fully operational.

Stay with 8News as new developments and updates to all facilities are made.