The retailer will begin building this spring a 850,000-square-foot “customer experience” centre in Longview, Texas, it announced Wednesday, Feb. 24. The warehouse is designed to deliver products faster and more efficiently in response to the dramatic e-commerce growth that has swept the industry over the past year. Once complete, the centre will be able to process up to one million units everyday.

Gap’s new distribution campus will feature new technologies that were piloted in its other centres across the retailer’s portfolio, it said, such as robotics and automation. The development is also expected to create more than 1,000 full-time jobs in Longview in the next five years.

“We needed to expand our fulfillment network to provide a great experience for our customers today and ensure we have the ability to grow in the future,” Gap chief operating officer Shawn Curran said in a statement.

Gap expects the facility to be fully functional by August 2022, adding to its existing infrastructure of six distribution centres across North America.