Amazon confirms two last-mile delivery centers

Amazon confirmed Monday that this building at the Delaware Logistics Park near Delaware City would be its third major investment in Delaware in less than a year. The e-commerce giant is opening two delivery stations here this year.| PHOTO COURTESY OF COLLIERS

Amazon confirmed Monday morning that it is opening two last-mile delivery centers in New Castle County, continuing its First State building spree.

The centers include already-built space at the Delaware Logistics Center near Delaware City, as first reported by the Delaware Business Times in January. The second space includes a smaller warehouse being constructed on the site of its Boxwood Road mega fulfillment center in Newport set to open this summer.

A company spokeswoman said that the delivery stations will each create hundreds of new full- and part-time jobs and are expected to open in late 2021.

“We are excited to continue to invest in the state of Delaware with new delivery stations that will provide efficient delivery for customers and create hundreds of job opportunities for the talented workforce,” said Jenna Hilzenrath, an Amazon spokesperson, in a statement. “These new delivery stations represent Amazon’s unwavering commitment to safety, technological innovations, and skilled teams who are obsessed with delivering for our customers.”

Amazon has been quickly growing its network of last-mile delivery stations, operating more than 250 nationwide right now. Packages arrive at these stations from fulfillment or sortation centers and are loaded into vehicles for delivery to customers. Amazon’s increasingly visible blue delivery trucks are manned by third-party contractors while the company’s Flex service hires so-called gig workers to deliver packages out of their own vehicles.

In its Monday announcement, Amazon touted its $3.2 billion investment in Delaware since 2010. It employs more than 4,500 full- or part-time positions. The investments have contributed an additional $2.5 billion to the Delaware economy and have helped create more than 1,900 indirect jobs on top of Amazon’s direct hires – from jobs in construction and logistics to professional services, the company reported.

As Amazon grows out its network of delivery stations, like the two it will open this year in Delaware, its blue vans will become even more common. | PHOTO COURTESY OF AMAZON

The e-commerce giant has been growing insatiably amidst the pandemic, reporting a 43% increase in sales last year and totaling more than $125 billion. In Delaware, Amazon has already leased the 3.8 million-square-foot mega warehouse under development by Dermody Properties at the former General Motors Boxwood site in New Castle as well as a more than 1.3 million-square-foot warehouse being developed by Stoltz Real Estate Partners just a few miles north of the Delaware Logistics Park in the Bear area. Both of those projects are expected to be in operation later this year.

The Delaware Logistics Park delivery center is a roughly 577,800-square-foot warehouse in a logistics park being developed by Kansas City-based NorthPoint Development. The Boxwood Road delivery center is roughly 220,000 square feet on the northeast corner of the Newport property.

“Dermody Properties is thankful to Amazon for its ongoing trust in our firm. The development of this delivery station and the previously announced fulfillment center culminates the decade-long redevelopment of the former General Motors Wilmington Assembly Plant,” said Jeffrey Zygler, partner at Dermody, in a statement Monday. “We are grateful to the state of Delaware, New Castle County and the Delaware Prosperity Partnership for their collaborative commitment to bring this project to fruition.”

With the newly confirmed projects added to its previous projects, Amazon will have added more than 5.7 million square feet in the last year to its real estate portfolio in Delaware, which already includes its original 200,000-square-foot New Castle facility and a 1 million-square-foot Middletown fulfillment center.

The NorthPoint facility features 64 trailer docks and 148 trailer stalls, but also 314 parking spaces. Plans submitted to the county appear to show 96 parked vehicles inside the facility. Amazon reportedly is outfitting the delivery stations to utilize electric vehicles in the future. It has made a goal of putting 10,000 such vehicles on the road in 2022.