City, JAX Chamber, development and company officials remained mum over the weekend after a permit application was filed Friday afternoon for a second Amazon.com fulfillment center in Jacksonville.
The two centers would create at least 2,700 jobs in West and Northwest Jacksonville. The first center, to create 1,500 jobs, is considered the single largest jobs announcement in the city’s history.
A second center creating 1,200 jobs would tie for the second-largest single announcement with Citi in 1998 and Bank of America in 1997.
Until Seattle-based Amazon.com announces the center, expected any day considering the building plans, those involved in Jacksonville aren’t talking.
JAXUSA Partnership President Jerry Mallot and Hillwood Investment Properties Senior Vice President Dan Tatsch declined comment. Hillwood is the developer of Alliance Florida at Cecil Commerce Center, the project site.
City Office of Economic Development Executive Director Kirk Wendland said through city spokeswoman Tia Ford that there was no information to provide at this time.
Amazon.com did not respond to a request for comment.
It’s been four months since Amazon.com announced its first fulfillment center in Northwest Jacksonville at 12900 Pecan Park Road, just north of Interstate 295.
The plans filed Friday are for a second one on 86 acres at 13333 103rd St. in AllianceFlorida in West Jacksonville.
Plans were filed for the city to review a proposed 1,016,041-square-foot warehouse fulfillment center on 86 acres, which matches the unidentified Project Velo for which City Council approved incentives Oct. 11.
Macgregor Associates Architects of Atlanta is the architect.
It’s not like construction isn’t evident at Cecil Commerce Center. The city issued a permit, also Oct. 11, for The Conlan Co. to clear the site.
Conlan is the builder as well for the Northwest Jacksonville Amazon.com fulfillment center, which will pick, pack and ship small consumer items, such as electronics and toys.
The Cecil Commerce Center warehouse is expected to pick, pack and ship larger consumer items, such as kayaks and TVs.
In addition, Amazon.com applied for a permit to build out a 63,000-square-foot delivery station in North Jacksonville at the Alta Lakes Commerce Center at 11084 Cabot Commerce Circle. That site is 9 miles east of the Northwest Jacksonville center.
The second fulfillment center has been expected.
It was just early last month that Council approved almost $7.1 million in taxpayer incentives for the unidentified Project Velo, a 1 million-square-foot, 1,200-job product distribution center planned at AllianceFlorida at Cecil Commerce Center.
The incentives legislation said the $116 million center would be developed on 86 acres at 13333 103rd St. The jobs would be created by the end of 2019.
Of the jobs to be created, 325 will pay an average of more than $50,000 a year. The remainder would be warehouse workers likely making $12-$15 an hour, or at least $25,000 a year.
Fort Worth-based Hillwood Investment Properties is the master developer at Cecil Commerce Center and is buying the property from the city for development.
Hillwood has been laying the groundwork for the project for months, but Tatsch has consistently declined comment about its identity.
All along, Project Velo sounded similar to the North Jacksonville fulfillment center that Amazon.com announced July 27.
That $200 million multilevel center will be 2.4 million square feet, with a footprint of 855,000 square feet.
A development team of Seefried Industrial Properties Inc. and USAA Real Estate Co., along with Conlan, is building it on about 170 acres at the Pecan Park Road site near Jacksonville International Airport.
That center’s 1,500 full-time workers will include 500 making an average $50,000 and the rest in the $12-$15 hourly range.
Both centers will hire more workers for seasonal work during the holidays.
Incentives for the North Jacksonville center will total $18.4 million in city and state refunds, grants, training and road improvements.
Amazon.com has been on a roll this year, announcing almost 20 fulfillment centers across the country ranging from 600,000 to 1.1 million square feet, including the first Jacksonville center.
Through August, it was announcing an average of two fulfillment centers a month this year. Among those, it announced multiple centers in several cities.
Employment for each of the centers ranges from “hundreds and hundreds” to 1,500.
In most cases, the company announced plans to develop separate fulfillment centers in those areas — one for small goods like toys, electronics, books and the like and another for large items like TVs, sporting goods and furniture.
The scenario already exists in central Florida. The company operates a 1 million-square-foot fulfillment center in Lakeland for large items and another 1.1 million-square-foot center for smaller items in Ruskin, 46 miles away.
In Jacksonville, the two warehouse centers will be about 23 miles apart.
A spokeswoman said in August, when asked about the emerging Cecil Commerce Center distribution center, that the company has a longstanding practice of not commenting about its future road map.
As of July, Amazon.com operated more than 50 fulfillment centers in the U.S. with more than 90,000 full-time employees.
Amazon.com is expected to start filling the North Jacksonville positions by mid-2017 to be up and running by the holiday season.
The city and JAX Chamber are developing a program to help North Jacksonville job candidates prepare to apply. A detailed plan is expected by year-end.
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