Amazon.com might not stop at just one e-commerce center in Jacksonville.
At least, not if economic developers can help it.
“We are continuing to encourage them to do other things. They do other centers for large projects, so our work with them is not finished,” said JAXUSA Partnership President Jerry Mallot, who leads the economic-development division of the JAX Chamber.
Mallot said there was no timeframe for additional regional projects by Amazon.com, which announced Wednesday what has been expected since at least April when City Council approved its part of the $18.4 million incentive package for the code-named “Project Rex.”
The Seattle-based global e-commerce retailer will open a fulfillment center in North Jacksonville that will create more than 1,500 full-time jobs. Mallot and JAX Chamber President Daniel Davis said it was the single largest jobs announcement in Jacksonville’s history.
The center will be an 855,000-square-foot footprint, with enough height to boost capacity to almost 2.4 million square feet of space, to pick, pack and ship small items such as books, electronics and consumer goods.
Amazon.com didn’t confirm more plans for Jacksonville on Wednesday, although the company appears to announce projects through news releases once those deals are well underway.
“We don’t comment on our future roadmap, but I can tell you that we are thrilled to be bringing 1,500 full-time jobs to the Jacksonville community with the opening of our fulfillment center,” said spokeswoman DeAnn Baxter.
Asked about the shipment territory from Jacksonville, she said Amazon.com’s fulfillment centers ship orders all over the world.
Baxter said Amazon.com operates more than 50 fulfillment centers and 23 sortation centers in the U.S., with more than 90,000 full-time employees working in fulfillment centers.
Fulfillment centers are where Amazon.com packages items for delivery. At a sortation center, it takes packages heading to customers and sorts them for the “last-mile” final delivery.
A list from the TaxJar e-commerce sales-tax filing service shows several U.S. cities and counties with two and sometimes more Amazon.com centers.
That indicates it would not be out of the question for the company to add more operations in Jacksonville, such as a sortation center, another fulfillment center or even office space.
“We feel they have had a great experience here so far and will continue to consider us for other options as they grow in the South,” Mallot said.
One location for such an option could be AllianceFlorida at Cecil Commerce Center in West Jacksonville, where master developer Hillwood Investment Properties is working with several large, unidentified companies.
Hillwood has submitted plans to an unidentified prospect for a center of 850,000 square feet that can be expanded to 1 million square feet. That prospect had responded to a proposal from Hillwood during the second quarter.
In addition, Hillwood is courting another potential project interested in up to 1 million square feet and another looking for up to 400,000 square feet.
Last week, Hillwood submitted an application to the city to develop a 407,435-square-foot speculative warehouse.
Hillwood Senior Vice President Dan Tatsch on Wednesday said he could not comment on prospective deals “that we may or may not be chasing.”
He said most of the larger prospects require non-disclosure agreements to protect the confidentiality of their site-selection process.
Tatsch agrees with JAXUSA Partnership’s encouragement of Amazon.com to consider the city for more operations.
He called it “an appropriate goal for the chamber and one that Hillwood shares and supports.”
Another reason it wouldn’t be surprising for more area investment is that Amazon.com has large nationwide plans, announcing two new fulfillment centers so far this week and 16 since the end of March.
On Tuesday, it announced it would open a fulfillment center in Illinois.
So far in Florida, Amazon.com said it employs 6,000 people among four sites — fulfillment centers in Lakeland and Ruskin and sortation centers in Miami and Davenport, which is near Lakeland.
It opened its first Florida fulfillment center in Lakeland in August 2014. The 1-million-square-foot facility handles larger items, like kayaks and TVs, and features a 6-ton Robo-Stow. Theledger.com news site describes it as one of the largest robotic arms in the world.
About 46 miles southwest, Amazon.com opened a fulfillment center in September 2014 in Ruskin, south of Tampa. That 1.1-million-square-foot center, like the one to open in Jacksonville, ships smaller items such as electronics, kitchen appliances, books, DVDs and toys.
Tampabay.com said in March the two centers employ a total of 3,300 people. The company said it does not break down the number of employees at each facility.
In addition to fulfillment and warehouse positions, Amazon.com also is creating office jobs. In June it announced it would create a 100-job technology development center in downtown Minneapolis.
The company said it already employed hundreds of people in Minnesota and was hiring 1,000 more for a new fulfillment center near Minneapolis.
“We just want everyone to have a job, regardless of education level, and this will be the biggest success story,” Mallot said.
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