Governor Northam announced on Tuesday that Amazon will build a new cross-dock fulfillment center in Stafford, serving as an East Coast supply chain hub and creating 500 jobs.
The 630,000-square-foot facility at the Northern Virginia Gateway industrial site in Stafford will be responsible for the beginning of a supply chain where products from third party vendors are sorted, repacked and distributed to other Amazon distribution centers. It will be the second cross-dock fulfillment center located in Virginia. One in Chesapeake, will open next year.
The new Amazon facility will be located in Centreport Parkway and is projected to be operational by the second half of 2022. Virginia competed with Maryland and North Carolina for the project.
The 500 jobs created in Stafford will join an existing 27,000 jobs Amazon has already created in the commonwealth. Amazon has promised to create 25,000 jobs alone by 2030 at its HQ2 East Coast headquarters in Arlington.
The path of a package from Amazon goes from the fulfillment center to line-haul trailers, which are taken to Amazon Air sites, then to sortation centers and then to delivery stations or partner facilities, such as a post office. Then packages are sorted according to delivery route, loaded onto Amazon trucks and delivered to customers.
“Stafford County established the Centreport area as a strategic logistics and distribution employment center and focused on attracting major brands,” Stafford County Board of Supervisors Chair Crystal Vanuch said in a statement. “This location provides its users with direct access to I-95, placing light industrial business traffic adjacent to Stafford Regional Airport. With five large Centreport properties currently in permits, construction or opening, the plan’s success is its own reward, and we are proud that Amazon selected Stafford as the site for its cross-dock facility.”
“Amazon is making significant investments throughout Virginia that are helping to drive job growth, fuel the economy, and move cargo through the Port of Virginia,” Virginia Port Authority CEO and Executive Director Stephen A. Edwards said in a statement. “This strategic decision to build a cross-dock fulfillment center in Stafford County capitalizes on the supply chain efficiencies and service delivery offered by this mid-Atlantic location and the Port of Virginia. We value Amazon’s decision as we continue to grow our collaborative and beneficial relationship.”
