Amazon Doubles Its Warehouse Presence in Illinois, California Cities
The company also announced May 25 it will open a second 1-million-square-foot distribution center in Tracy, California, as well as a similar facility in the Riverside County community of Eastvale, altogether creating more than 1,500 additional full-time jobs for California.
In Illinois, the state is rolling out the welcome mat, offering the online retail giant additional tax breaks expected to be worth at least $2 million a year for a decade.
Amazon hopes to have the second, 700,000-square-foot warehouse — from where smaller items like books, toys and electronics will be picked, packed and shipped — open by the fall, in time for the holiday shopping season, said John Grueling, president and CEO of the Will County Center for Economic Development, who described the news as "a huge win for Will County."
Ikea and candy giant Mars also are building new distribution centers in the area, which has become a favorite for national retailers looking to serve the Chicago market, thanks to its transportation links and availability of affordable labor: Joliet in March had an 8.8% unemployment rate, well above the statewide average of 6.8%, according to the Illinois Department of Employment Security.
Jobs at the second Joliet warehouse, which will be next to the first, 500,000-square-foot warehouse at Illinois Route 53 and Laraway Road, have yet to be advertised. Jobs at the first warehouse pay $13 an hour and $14.95 an hour, with some better-paid positions for workers with technical skills.
Amazon for years avoided having a physical presence in Illinois so it could sidestep sales taxes, relying instead on massive warehouses in Indiana and, more recently, Wisconsin, to serve the Chicago area. But it softened its approach in 2015, when it began collecting sales tax from Illinois consumers after a law change.
Increased demand for its same-day Amazon Prime delivery service and competition from other Internet retail operations, including Wal-Mart, are pushing it to expand the number of warehouses it operates.
With the newly announced facilities in California, Amazon said it would have nine fulfillment centers in that state, covering 9 million square feet of operations and employing about 14,000 full-time hourly workers. It also operates large sorting centers in Newark and San Bernardino, which are designed to speed delivery of already-packed orders to its customers.
Michael Ammann, chief executive of the San Joaquin Partnership, a countywide economic development agency, said this latest announcement extends Amazon's strategy to serve much of Northern California with same-day and next-day delivery of all types of consumer goods.
Since building the first sprawling fulfillment center in Tracy, as well as similar facility in Patterson, in late 2013, Amazon has added smaller delivery and sorting facilities throughout the Bay Area and has begun offering same-day delivery on many of its most popular items throughout the Bay Area and much of the Central Valley, he noted.
"This is kind of a capstone, in my view, to being really able to deliver same-day service and anything you want," Ammann said. And it is likely a model to be replicated in other markets.
"We're the first of a number of other major metropolitan regions or megaregions that are going to see this coming their way," he said.
Ashley Robinson, an Amazon spokeswoman, said the existing Tracy facility "currently employs more than 2,500 full-time hourly associates," Robinson reported.
She would say only that the new fulfillment center would provide hundreds of new jobs.
Contributing: The Stockton Record
