Amazon to Make New Staten Island Warehouse a Delivery Station
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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Amazon says a new 450,000-square-foot warehouse leased in Bloomfield will be used as a delivery station that will help speed up deliveries to local residents.
The new building on Staten Island’s West Shore in Matrix Global Logistics Park is located next to its existing $100 million, 855,000-square-foot Amazon fulfillment center, which opened in 2017. That facility employs more than 4,000 people who work alongside robots to pick, pack and ship customer orders that are delivered to various geographic areas.
“We are excited to increase our investment in Staten Island with a new delivery station to speed up delivery times for customers and provide hundreds of job opportunities for the talented local workforce,” an Amazon spokesperson said.
The new warehouse will have a different use than the existing Staten Island Amazon facility. It will be for “last-mile deliveries,” which means packages from the facility will go to a specific geographic area, likely within the five boroughs, a source told the Advance on Jan. 28.
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“Delivery stations power the last mile of our order process and help speed up deliveries for customers,” the spokesperson said. “Packages are shipped there from neighboring Amazon fulfillment and sortation centers and loaded into vehicles to get delivered to customers.”
The spokesman said the new site will open sometime this year, but couldn’t yet say how many people will be hired to work at the facility.
In addition to the two Amazon warehouses, Matrix Global Logistics Park houses an IKEA facility and a yet-to-be-complete 975,000-square-foot building.
Recent Rally
In November, more than 100 protesters rallied in front of Staten Island’s Amazon fulfillment center for better working conditions amid reports of high rates of injuries at the Bloomfield facility.
The crowd — made up of some Amazon workers, politicians, and members of the teamsters and other local unions like Make the Road New York and New York Communities for Change — chanted such phrases as “Amazon, Amazon you can’t hide. We can see your greedy side.”
The Advance also reported on a study by Make the Road New York and New York Communities for Change that claims that Staten Island workers “are injured more often than coal miners, waste collection workers and other laborers.”
However, Rachael Lighty, an Amazon spokeswoman, issued the following statement immediately following the rally: “Fewer than five Amazon associates participated in the event outside of the Staten Island fulfillment center this evening. It was obvious to the 4,500 full-time workforce that an outside organization used our building and the upcoming retail holidays to raise its own visibility and spread misinformation.”
“The fact is that Amazon provides a safe, quality work environment in which associates are the heart and soul of the customer experience, and today’s event, and the notable lack of Amazon employee participation, shows that associates know this to be true,” she added.
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