Amazon to Open Another North Carolina Facility
HIGH POINT, N.C. — A north High Point warehouse under construction near Interstate 40 will be a delivery station for Amazon.com, the online retail giant confirmed Aug. 22.
The $12.7 million, 66,780-square-foot building at National Service Road and Piedmont Triad Parkway will open this year, according to the company.
Further information, such as the number of people the station will employ and what the jobs will entail, was not available.
Amazon.com Services Inc. signed a lease in April for the property.
Amazon has a 1 million-square-foot fulfillment center under construction at Triad Business Park in Kernersville.
That location, which will open in 2020 and employ 1,000 people, is fewer than 5 miles from the High Point delivery station.
“Amazon is expanding all the time, in terms of its sales and so, the more it expands, the more distribution centers it needs,” said Mike McCully, associate professor of economics at High Point University. “Especially because one of the ways it’s trying to compete is by making faster deliveries than other online ecommerce sites.”
Amazon has built up its logistics infrastructure in recent years, with its own network of aircraft and trucks to take over as much delivery of products as possible.
“That’s another trend happening with Amazon that could affect us,” McCully said. “They’re going pretty big into doing their own delivery instead of going through FedEx, UPS or the Postal Service. We could see some hiring in terms of people driving vans and not just working at the warehouse.”
Delivery stations like the one under construction in High Point handle last-mile ground deliveries to homes and businesses.
“If they can cut down on the cost of delivery and speed up arrivals, then that gives them a way to build even more business,” McCully said.
