Amazon plans to build sorting facility at former Sears warehouse in Anchorage

Amazon is turning a former Sears warehouse in South Anchorage into a sorting facility.

The world’s largest e-commerce retailer plans to build a “best of the best” with enough parking space to handle more than 100 delivery vans at 5900 Old Seward Highway off Dowling Road, according to the project’s Amazon permit application. Establish a state-of-the-art distribution and warehousing center. Filed with state and federal agencies.

The company expanded its 90,000-square-foot warehouse and parking lot, adding 125 parking spaces for employees, adding space for product loading outside the docking area, and ensuring a safe flow of vehicles. I am planning to The building was formerly a Sears service center and repair shop.

According to Amazon’s Water Quality Application, “This new facility will ameliorate disruptions to Alaska’s supply chain and provide a facility to efficiently distribute goods from outside Alaska to Alaskan communities, resulting in increased employment and commerce.” Helps build the economy through” accreditation by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation.

Amazon officials did not respond to requests to discuss the project on Friday.

Bill Popp, president of Anchorage Economic Development Corp., said the expansion of Amazon’s footprint in Alaska highlights a “dramatic increase” in online shopping in Alaska during the pandemic, a trend already underway. You said you were accelerating.

“Combined with increased access to broadband services, this new distribution facility underscores how much local consumers have increased their purchases through online services,” he said.

[The pandemic years changed shopping in Anchorage. Maybe forever.]

Amazon’s filing does not specify how many jobs the center will create. Construction is scheduled to begin in the spring.

Amazon plans about one daily flight to Fairbanks International Airport and about one or two daily flights to Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, which includes products from out of state, airport ties said. said the person.

Popp said the new sorting center in Anchorage will create valuable jobs.

[Starlink begins providing high-speed satellite internet in Alaska]

“This will bring a little more economic value to Anchorage from Amazon’s supply chain,” he said.

Jobs at Amazon’s facilities add jobs to about 4,500 warehouses in Anchorage, which pay an average of more than $66,000 a year, he said.

These jobs are part of “hot” business sectors such as trade, transportation and utilities, he said. It’s the only Anchorage sector to surpass 2019 employment figures before the pandemic.

Popp said jobs related to cargo handling at Anchorage International Airport, the world’s top cargo hub, were the main reason for its outperformance. The world’s largest shipping companies, UPS and FedEx, have major international cargo operations at Anchorage Airport. They and others are proposing new cargo handling facilities at airports as global air trade grows.

Amazon’s proposed sorting facility is located approximately four miles (4 miles) southeast of Anchorage International Airport.

Amazon’s application to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers calls for the placement of 3,673 cubic yards of gravel and other landfills on a 2-acre swamp. The location is just east of Campbell Creek.

The application asks Amazon to expand the parking lot to cover wetlands adjacent to the existing parking lot, said Becky Manbeck, an official at the Corps’ Fairbanks office. . To manage stormwater drainage at the new development, underground pipes will be installed and stormwater runoff will be filtered through “vaulted chambers” before being discharged into Campbell Creek, according to an application to the Corps.

[The great mismatch: Remote jobs are in demand, but positions are drying up]

The former Sears warehouse was sold earlier this year to international real estate firm Time Equities as part of a $44 million deal that included the sale of a former Sears property in Anchorage’s Midtown Mall. Time Equities is listed as the owner of the building on the city’s property records.

Popp said the project marks a global shift in shopping habits.

Amazon has become an international giant as more shoppers buy more online, posing a challenge to its brick-and-mortar competitors. Sears went bankrupt in 2018 amid speculation that it had failed to effectively adapt to digital shopping.

“It’s a shame that the old retail model doesn’t work the way it used to,” says Popp. “This is the nature of creative disruption, and e-commerce is how many consumers get the products they want.”

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