Some of each. I’ve seen well-marked d.c.'s for Target and Barnes & Noble, but also countless dozens of nameless, faceless white d.c.'s (we passed a bunch on the PA Turnpike west of the Susquehanna over the Xmas holiday).
Very common. I’ve worked some temp jobs in huge warehouses like that, and it can be frustrating driving through an industrial park trying to find the right one, because the signs are often fairly small and sticking out of the ground on posts.
Like Neutron Star said, why bother putting a big expensive sign up? The truckers know where it is (maybe not the very first time they come through, but they have cell phones) and their customers never see the building… Its all delivery.
(oh, and I forgot to mention… its not just some driveby posting… I used to work at a place like this and that’s why I’m interested)
Is this it?
I dunno if it is what the OP what talking about - but it is what I was talking about.
In the late 1990’s, I worked for SuperValu, and helped open a huge distribution center in Illinois. They had a big supply of semi-trailers, mostly new, and all neatly painted with the SuperValu logo.
A few weeks into that, and they had to re-paint all these fancy new trailers plain white with the bland “Advantage Logistics” name on them. The problem was that SuperValu supplied lots of independent grocers using these trailers, and these grocers complained about their customers seeing a “SuperValu” truck unloading at their grocery store. Especially if there is a competing grocery store in town with the SuperValu name. (It’s common, especially in smaller towns, for several competing grocery stores, with different names, to all buy their groceries from SuperValu wholesale.) So the grocers who were their customers demanded ‘faceless’ delivery semi-trailers.
It sure looks like it. If you zoom in on Google Maps, you’ll see two planted islands in the parking lot in the exact relative positions to the office area.
Duh. In the second-to-last pic (I think)…
Actually, the 2nd pic down. The office area on Google Maps is the relatively puny block on the north side of the warehouse.