UPS held an official ground-breaking ceremony announcing plans to expand its package sorting and delivery facility in Herne, Germany. The $80-million project, due to be completed by the end of 2017, will more than double the operating area and sorting capacity of the hub, according to the company.

After the expansion is completed, the Herne facility will have an operating area of 25,000 square meters and be equipped with advanced technology that will increase its package sorting capacity to more than 36,000 pieces per hour.

Furthermore, the number of loading and unloading bays for containers will almost double to about 130 and the number of parking positions for those iconic Brown delivery trucks will increase to 180. UPS currently employs 1,100 people in its operation in Herne, and the expansion is expected to create up to 300 new jobs at the hub when the new capacity is fully utilized.

UPS has been serving customers in Germany for forty years and has more than 18,000 employees at 83 facilities. In 2014, UPS completed an expansion of its European air hub in Cologne, which enables connections to UPS’s global logistics network.