Amazon.com expects to bring on its first associates this month at its initial Jacksonville fulfillment center in Northwest Jacksonville and start processing orders there Sept. 1, according to spokeswoman Shevaun Brown.
That 1,500-job center, at 12900 Pecan Park Road, will handle small consumer items.
Amazon intends to open its 1,000-job Cecil Commerce Center fulfillment center in late September, but Brown did not have an exact date. That center, at 13333 103rd St., will process large consumer goods.
That’s earlier than previously expected. It means both centers will be operating for the holiday season.
“We’ve made great progress on the construction of the Cecil Commerce FC and have been able to move its opening date forward. We’ll bring on employees first and will start processing orders shortly thereafter,” Brown said by email, referring to the fulfillment center as FC.
Brown said Amazon was able to hire for many of the Cecil Commerce Center associates at its July job fair, but positions remain available and candidates are asked to apply at amazondelivers.jobs.
Many of the warehouse jobs are listed on job sites at $12-$16 an hour.
Brown said the Westside Industrial Park sortation center will open later in September, but she did not have a date. She also did not have a confirmed date for the Alta Lakes Commerce Center delivery station.
The Seattle-based online retailer is leasing the four centers.
The Pecan Park Road facility is a multilevel, 2.4 million-square-foot warehouse. The Cecil Commerce Center project is a 1 million-square-foot center.
The almost 240,000-square-foot Westside Industrial Park sortation center at 4948 Bulls Bay Highway is expected to staff 200 positions. Those were part of the job fair.
Those centers take shipments from the fulfillment centers and sort them by ZIP codes within a defined market region around the center.
The packages are then taken to the U.S. Postal Service or local couriers for delivery, including Amazon delivery stations.
The 63,000-square-foot Alta Lakes delivery station in North Jacksonville is at 11084 Cabot Commerce Circle.
Those stations sort packages for last-mile delivery to customers in a tightly defined area. Often deliveries are performed by multiple local courier companies contracted by Amazon.com.
Amazon announced plans in July 2016 for the Pecan Park Road center, meaning it built and staffed it in 13 months.
It announced the Cecil Commerce Center warehouse in January, meaning that project will be up and running in eight months.
The multilevel Pecan Park Road center has been described as more complex than the 103rd Street warehouse.
Amazon did not formally announce the sortation center or delivery station, but has acknowledged them when discussing hiring and opening dates.
The city and state approved $25.7 million in incentives for the two large fulfillment centers. Legislation says the company’s total investment will be $315 million.
City legislation reported that 1,500 jobs would be filled at Pecan Park Road and 1,200 at Cecil Commerce Center. Of those, 825 will pay an average of $50,000 a year.
When the first center was announced, JAX Chamber said it was the largest single jobs announcement in Jacksonville history.
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