By Steve Burks | AZ Big Media
You’re not mistaken if you feel like you’re seeing a new Amazon fulfillment or delivery facility pop up every few months in Arizona — specifically, the Greater Phoenix market. In fact, the company is on pace to average one new facility each month in the market during 2020, with 12 new locations beginning operations during the calendar year and three more facilities ready to come online in 2021.
“Growth and expansion is based on demand. Amazon’s business continues to grow exponentially, and with it, Greater Phoenix is a beneficiary,” said Chris Camacho, president and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. “Greater Phoenix is the perfect location for distribution because of our infrastructure, talent pool, low business costs and advantageous operating environment. Businesses in Greater Phoenix can serve more than 33 million consumers in a single days truck haul, our shipping costs to California are up to 75 percent cheaper than other Mountain West markets and we have the third largest labor pool in the western U.S.”
Relative to population, Arizona was Amazon’s most active market in 2020, which was the most active the company has been in the state. Since 2017, Amazon has opened 20 facilities in Arizona, and according to Amazon spokesperson Lisa Guinn, the number of full- and part-time employees will be more than 20,000 statewide by the end of 2020 and those numbers grow each year. All of this growth in the market has taken just 13 years from the time Amazon opened its first facility in the state in 2007.
