Amazon.com is on a roll, announcing plans at an average pace of one every nine days.
Since March 24, the Seattle-based global e-commerce retailer announced it would open 14 fulfillment centers in six states, creating more than 13,000 jobs and needing almost 11.6 million square feet of distribution space.
Jacksonville could be next.
With the property transferred, taxpayer incentives approved and site clearing underway, all that remains is for Amazon.com to say it will open a center and create 1,500 jobs by year-end 2019 in North Jacksonville.
Those involved in a deal to recruit the company remained tight-lipped last week, even as property totaling more than 170 acres was sold Thursday for development of an online fulfillment center at Interstate 295 and Pecan Park and Duval roads.
If Amazon.com continues its recent pattern, it might issue a release this week.
It announced 855,000-square-foot fulfillment centers last Friday, the Friday before that and the Monday before that.
That’s the footprint size of the Jacksonville center.
All are shown as creating at least 1,000 jobs; Jacksonville’s center is expected to hire 1,500 employees.
Jacksonville has been waiting for confirmation by Amazon.com since April, when a resolution was introduced and quickly adopted by City Council to offer taxpayer incentives to the code-named Project Rex.
Council was told the company was assessing cities across the country for fulfillment centers.
Since the resolution was introduced, Amazon.com has announced a dozen fulfillment centers.
Amazon.com; USAA Real Estate Company, the land buyer; and Seefried Industrial Properties Inc., the developer, have not returned calls or emails for comment. District council member Reginald Gaffney did not return a call Friday.
The mayor’s office, the Office of Economic Development and JAX Chamber have issued no comments since Friday or said they had no information to share.
Land seller Steve Leggett confirmed the sale Friday morning, but declined to identify the tenant for the property.
Nonetheless, much is known about the center.
USAA Real Estate, through RELP Duval LLC, paid $15 million for a contracted 155 acres in North Jacksonville from Broward Signature LLP, led by Leggett as managing partner.
RELP also paid $700,000 for about 23 acres from SunTrust Bank, through CRM Florida Properties LLC, along Pecan Park and Duval roads. SunTrust had taken deed to that property in 2012 in lieu of foreclosure.
Atlanta-based Seefried Industrial Properties Inc. had the contract to buy the Leggett land and is listed on construction documents as the developer and USAA Real Estate is listed as the owner.
Seefried and USAA have partnered on other real estate projects, including a recently announced Amazon.com center in Sacramento, Calif.
Seefried also has developed two Amazon.com centers in Richmond, Va., and Nashville, Tenn.
It’s not clear whether the Jacksonville center will handle small or large items. Construction documents say the proposed facility is “to be used as an online order fulfillment center for general product merchandise.”
Each of the three recently announced similar-size centers will pick, pack and ship smaller customer items, such as books, electronics and toys.
In fact, most of the 14 new centers will handle those smaller items, while several will pick, pack and ship large items, like household decor, sporting equipment and gardening tools.
Still, much is known about the Jacksonville center through city and state incentives and public documents.
To recap, it is a $200 million, more than 1,500-job project at 12900 Pecan Park Road. Of those jobs, 500 will make an average of $50,000 a year. Peak seasonal employment will increase the workforce to 3,500 among two shifts.
Permits and plans in city review show a base footprint of 855,000 square feet but a total multilevel project of 2.4 million square feet. The construction cost is listed at $87 million.
Site clearing has begun. The city in April approved a permit for horizontal development on the property at a project cost of $1 million.
City and state incentives will provide $18.4 million in refunds, grants, training and road improvements. Pecan Park Road already is closed near the project for realignment.
No contractor was listed on the construction permit application. Tetra Tech Inc. is the consultant and the agent’s engineer.
Amazon.com isn’t new to Florida, just as it wasn’t new to most of the states announced this year. In 2013, it chose two Florida sites for 1-million-square-foot fulfillment centers.
The company opened online in 1995 and now employs 230,800 people worldwide.
While it doesn’t publicly list the number or locations of its fulfillment centers, at least 85 have opened or been announced in at least 21 states, according to recent announcements and data from the blog of TaxJar, an e-commerce sales-tax filing service.
And that includes “fulfillment center announced for North Jacksonville in 2016.”
@MathisKb
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