Amazon says Nisku fulfillment facility will employ 600 people when it opens next spring

Amazon says it is on track to finish its one-million-square-foot fulfillment centre in Leduc County by spring 2020.

The facility is located at the Border Business Park in Nisku (1440 – 39 Ave.) directly south of Edmonton’s city limit at 41 Avenue SW.

Once complete, the massive building, which is projected to cost $120 million to build, will be the size of 21 football fields. As of Tuesday, the company said the project is about 40 per cent complete.

READ MORE: Amazon announces 2nd fulfillment centre in Alberta, this one outside Edmonton

“It’s different in terms of we keep evolving fulfillment technology — in terms of storage solutions and in terms of automation — so this will have the most latest storage solutions for these heavy, bulky, bigger type of items that we store in the county.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "It's different in terms of we keep evolving fulfillment technology — in terms of storage solutions and in terms of automation — so this will have the most latest storage solutions for these heavy, bulky, bigger type of items that we store in the county."

“To see a tenant of this size… a million square feet, is unprecedented in Alberta, actually I think it’s the biggest distribution site we have seen built in Alberta,” said Bill Bird, the senior vice-president of ONE Properties.

ONE Properties is a development firm working on the facility with Amazon. Bird said Leduc County was appealing because of less expensive taxes and a location that allows for easy access to Edmonton, the airport and areas north of the city.

The construction phase of the project will employ about 250 workers at its peak. Once the centre is open, the Amazon facility will employ 600 people.

“We are proud that Amazon has chosen Leduc County as the location of its next fulfillment centre,” Leduc County mayor Tanni Doblanko said in a news release

“This new centre will not only provide direct employment for more than 600 people in our region, but it will also boost the local economy, providing many indirect jobs and commerce for small businesses that will service both the new workforce and the facility.”

“We’re going to start with 600 jobs but over a period of time, the numbers we’ve seen [indicate that] as customer demands increase, they will just continue to go up,” Arora said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We're going to start with 600 jobs but over a period of time, the numbers we've seen [indicate that] as customer demands increase, they will just continue to go up," Arora said.

This is Amazon’s 11th fulfillment centre in Canada. Amazon is building another warehouse in Ontario that will be similar in size to the facility in Leduc County.

READ MORE: Amazon to open fulfillment centre in Caledon, Ont.