Colorado Springs 4-Story Tall Fulfillment Center Could be Amazon's Largest Ever

Source article: koaa.com (Feb. 23, 2020)

Amazon's current delivery center right here in Colorado Springs is about to get a whole lot bigger.

The new building to be constructed will have an estimated 850,000-square-foot foundation. Add in four stories of space and there's roughly 4 million square feet of room in the huge center planned. It could be the biggest one the company has ever built.

It will transform into a new-and-improved fulfillment center that will add more than 1,000 full-time jobs on top of the already 4,000 full-time employees in the state, according to the company. The center is near the Colorado Springs Airport.

Greg Phillips, director of aviation at the airport, said, "This is far bigger than the Thornton facility and any other facility in the state right now, and in fact it's our understanding that this could be, when all said and done, this could be the biggest sort/distribution facility of its type that Amazon has ever built."

At the center, Amazon employees will carry out orders for customers. Amazon says customer orders can include "books, electronics, and toys." Employees will start at $15 an hour with benefits and have the opportunity to continue their education.

The expectation is that the project will be a huge boost for the southeast side of Colorado Springs with tax revenue and more.

Bob Cope, economic development officer for the City of Colorado Springs, said, "That's going to spur, hopefully, new housing opportunities and also new retail opportunities in the area."

Phillips says maybe, overtime, more flights and air carriers will make their way to the Colorado Springs Airport.

Beyond the 1,000+ jobs that will be available, the advantage of having Amazon in our backyards is "getting your package in one-day delivery so that's something all of us look forward to," said Phillips. He shared that it's something the Colorado Springs community is already benefiting from.

A deal was finalized last week on the site. The company is betting on Colorado Springs' continued growth with an estimated 1 million more people expected to move here in the coming decades.

No incentives were given to Amazon from the city, county or state.

Amazon hopes to have this facility up and running by June 2021. Crews are already laying the groundwork for the building. One of Amazon's fulfillment centers is located in Thornton with a whole host of robots operating in the facility.

The Thornton Fulfillment Center opened in June 2018. About 1,500 full-time associates work alongside a system of hundreds of Amazon robotics. The robots, which look sort of like red Roomba vacuum cleaners with tall yellow shelves on top, move items around the 855,000-square-foot facility. The orders are then packed into boxes and prepared for shipment.

The Thornton fulfillment center focuses on smaller items like books, small electronics and household items. Another fulfillment center in Aurora focuses on large items like bicycles and TVs. The facility offers tours to anybody interested. While tours are full for December, January dates will be announced soon on Amazon's website here.

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