Amazon to build shipping facility in Escanaba
ESCANABA — Escanaba may soon be home to an Amazon shipping facility.
Multiple individuals with ties to the large-scale construction project on North 30th Street who spoke to the Daily Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on the project have confirmed the facility will be a fulfillment center for the online retail giant.
Rumors about Amazon began to swirl after mass mailers announcing the company was hiring were sent to Escanaba residents. The mailers advertise “opportunities for hourly employees” with “over $22/hr average wage,” “health care on day one for the whole family,” and “free skills training programs,” but do not indicate how Escanaba residents can apply for positions or where jobs will be based.
The Daily Press reached out to Amazon multiple times about the project, but got no statement about the company’s plans in Escanaba.
The city was unable to confirm Amazon was building in Escanaba but did confirm a last-mile fulfillment shipping terminal was planned for the North 30th Street site.
“I’m not able to say the name of the end user — I signed something where I can’t — but we did provide a site plan approval at the planning commission for what kind of fits within our ordinance as an enclosed freight terminal. It’s not a done deal, there’s still some things that need to be worked out, all of the city approvals are there, but something of the sort is coming,” said Escanaba City Manager Jim McNeil, who added he believed the project was “moving in the right direction.”
The freight terminal site plan the Escanaba Planning Commission approved Feb. 13 will be at 928 N. 30th St., a parcel on the corner of North 30th Street and Sixth Avenue North. The plan includes a 50,400-square-foot building and 316 parking spaces — 146 for employees and five that are compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act — plus six line-haul truck docks, 15 van launch pads and additional parking and queuing areas for semis and delivery vans.
“Delivery operations at the delivery station are designed to efficiently manage the last mile of the order fulfillment process. Packages arrive at the site from neighboring fulfillment and sortation centers via trailer trucks and are processed through designation sortation and dispatch waves,” a traffic assessment included with the project plan stated.
The site plan does not include any reference to Amazon specifically, but some of the firms named in the plan documents are well associated with Amazon. The design documents themselves come from architectural and building engineering firm CESO, which has been involved with other Amazon projects, including a distribution center in Traverse City. The traffic assessment was done by NV5, which provided geotechnical engineering and design services for Amazon’s 2.5 million-square-foot warehouse near Miami, Fla.