After months of unofficial reports and rumors about Amazon bringing a fulfillment center to Tucson, the company made an official announcement today confirming previous reports that Amazon will be bringing 1,500 jobs to Tucson with their new fulfillment center to be located on Tucson’s southeast side. The building will be located at the Port of Tucson, at 6701 S Kolb Road. It will be on the east side of Kolb Road on blocks 7, 8 and 9 of the Port of Tucson’s phase 2 area, a couple miles south of Kolb and Valencia. The building is expected to open in June of 2019 with construction expected to start next month.
The new fulfillment center is expected to add $600 million to the regional economy over the next five years. The statement mentions that the new Amazon employees “will pick, pack and ship small items to customers such as books, electronics, household items and toys.” Employees will receive benefits from day one on the job and pay rates are slightly higher than in normal retail, but still usually start at around $13/hour. Employees also receive a 401(k) and are eligible for tuition reimbursement.
The size of the building is described in the announcement as “more than 855,000 square feet”. With the project’s secrecy up until now, even being referred to as “Project Wildcat” in documents, details on the building’s specifications and design have been hard to come by. The building permit describes the building as “New shell building construction of an 857,388 SF warehouse storage and office facility with three levels of RSP mezzanines (total 1,196,161 SF) and additional process mezzanine (265,049 SF).” The entire project, which also consists of 63 loading docks, nearly 400 transport trailer parking spaces, along with 2,500 standard parking spaces, will take up around 80 acres. An additional 15 acres will be set aside for the possibility of future expansion. The facility will be accessible from both Kolb and Valencia Roads and certainly makes the Kolb/Valencia intersection project even more of a necessity than before. Amazon did request that the location be annexed into the City of Tucson, which will happen when the building is completed. The project will be developed by a developer commonly used by Amazon, Seefried Industrial Properties.
This has been the culmination of an 8-month process in which groups like Sun Corridor, Pima County, City of Tucson, Arizona Commerce Authority and others, worked to bring Amazon to Tucson. Hiring will start a couple of months before the center’s expected opening in June 2019 and we will definitely keep you updated as building plans become available and more details are known.
Article reprinted from Tucson Improvement & Beautification Organization at http://tiboaz.biz
