Returning to our roots: Meet the new Cleveland warehouse!

Microcosm Publishing & Distribution is thrilled to announce that we are opening a second distribution warehouse—in Cleveland, Ohio, the city where our company was founded 25 years ago next week.

Though we’ve been based in Portland, Oregon since the end of 1998, most of our first three years of operations were based out of founder Joe Biel’s hometown of Cleveland. Biel says, “Cleveland remains Microcosm’s biggest influence. So it only seems like the appropriate thing to bring it back, support the city, and create jobs. Cleveland is the center of the universe, after all.”

Microcosm is maintaining its Portland headquarters and staff, which will continue to be home to our publishing offices and ship to the western U.S.

The Cleveland warehouse will provide much needed room for expansion after a year of 56% growth in 2020 and 64% growth in 2019. The new warehouse will make faster shipping times possible, not least because it is located just a few hours from where Microcosm’s books are printed.

We got the keys to the new warehouse over the past weekend, and the next steps are to train our first staff member there, build a lot of shelves, stock up on things like tape and boxes, make sure our software can differentiate between inventory locations, and start shipping pallets of books there. We expect to begin operations at the new warehouse in the beginning of March, 2021.

While we are not planning a retail storefront for the building, it’s probable that Cleveland-area customers will be able to arrange local pickups once we are up and running. Publishing is lonely work, after all.