ARLINGTON, Texas — Rent the Runway, a popular online fashion service that ships clothes right to your door, opened its new fulfillment center in Arlington, bringing 500 new jobs.
“It’s very exciting and job creation is one of the most important things to be happening in any city,” said Jeff Williams, Arlington mayor.
More than 200 jobs have already been filled but the company expects to have more than 500 employees working at the new 300,000-square-foot facility on Bardin Road.
“The people in Texas in general, your work ethic, your ability to take ownership is just amazing, and we actually want those types of people in our business,” said Marv Cunningham, chief operating officer.
The company launched 10 years ago and has grown into a bustling online subscription business shipping everything from designer purses to couture dresses to customers across the country.
“We have from very high-formality things that you would see on the red carpet all the way down to what you would wear to go to happy hour with your friends,” Cunningham said.
The company takes in thousands of returned items, and gets them ready to ship to new customers as soon as possible with what the company calls the largest dry cleaning facility in the country.
The service has gotten so popular and the demand so big the New Jersey-based company had to grow with it.
“We needed a location not in Secaucus, New Jersey,” Cunningham said.
The new fulfillment center will cut order times to customers in the west and Midwest, meaning whether dresses end up on the red carpet in Hollywood or a night out in Sundance Square, they’ll pass through the hands of Texas workers.