Amazon to Expand With 5 Facilities in Metro Detroit

Image courtesy of Amazon

Keeping up with the pace of e-commerce demand, Amazon plans to expand its footprint in metropolitan Detroit with the addition of five new facilities. The company will add three fulfillment centers and two sortation centers at various locations in the Detroit area.

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Amazon hasn’t disclosed all the details on the new buildings; however, one of the facilities will be an 823,000-square-foot fulfillment center in Detroit proper and will mark the company’s fourth such center in Michigan utilizing Amazon robotics to assist associates with picking, packing and shipping smaller items. The company will also open a same-day fulfillment center in Hazel Park and a sortation center in Plymouth. The final two facilities, a sortation center and an XL fulfillment center, will debut at Pinnacle Park in Huron Township on the site of a former Pinnacle Race Course, which saw its last horse races in 2010.

Amazon, which has been in the State of Michigan since 2010, has been quickly expanding its presence in metropolitan Detroit over the last year. The company currently operates 10 support, fulfillment, delivery and operations centers in the area, four of which opened in 2020.

Timely growth spurt

From its first fulfillment center in Iowa in February to its first fulfillment center in Louisiana in December, Amazon spent 2020 in expansion mode. It was all part of the company’s plan to increase its one-day delivery offerings, but the increase in e-commerce activity due to the pandemic certainly impacted its schedule. As Brian Olsavsky, CFO of Amazon.com Inc., said during the company’s third quarter 2020 earnings conference call on October 29, 2020: “The logistics team is really good at one way locking up long-term commitments on space and buildings, but on the other hand, being able to adjust the timeline in or out to match capacity and demand.”

The five new Detroit-area facilities will launch in 2021, bringing a total of more than 2,000 permanent and full- and part-time jobs to the region.