Bezos bought the Washington Post for $250M almost immediately after Obama's CIA chief, the Muslim John Brennan, gave Amazon a taxpayer funded contract for $600M.
Posted on 06/02/2017 8:38:05 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Amazon.com today announced plans to open a fulfillment center in Fresno that will employ up to 2,500 people.
The 855,000 square-foot facility will be located in a burgeoning business zone at Orange and Central avenues — about 1,000 acres that is being primed for e-commerce and data center jobs, said Mayor Lee Brand in an interview.
Brand said there has been a lot of behind-the-scenes work getting the $100 million project permitted, and he expects a groundbreaking within 30 days, and about one year to build the center — putting an opening in the second half of 2018.
It will be the San Joaquin Valley's fifth Amazon fulfillment center — three are operating in Tracy and Patterson, and a fourth is under construction in Sacramento.
“We are very excited to expand our network into Fresno and throughout the San Joaquin Valley as a region,” said Akash Chauhan, Amazon’s vice president of North American operations, in a statement. “There are several factors we consider when deciding on where to place a new fulfillment center. Most importantly, we look to see where we can improve Prime benefits with faster shipping speeds for customers and where there is a dedicated workforce that can raise the bar of our operational excellence. We know we’ll find talent in abundance in Fresno to join the Amazon team.”
Brand visited an Amazon fulfillment center in Seattle — the electronic retailer's corporate home — earlier this year on a visit to sell Fresno as an ideal site. He was impressed with the state-of-the-art equipment and automation features. The Fresno fulfillment center will specialize in handling smaller-sized items such as books, electronic devices and children's toys, according to Amazon.
Landing Amazon is also a tall feather in Fresno's cap given the amount of competition for such facilities in an area that is within three miles of 30 million people. With brick-and-mortar stores closing, e-commerce is quickly rising as the modern retail model, and municipalities are following suit.
Visalia passed a package of incentives to lure a Nordstrom distribution center, and was in the running with Fresno before the retailer announced last year it was delaying its plans.
Madera County is working on building a 200-acre industry park near Highway 99 and Avenue 7, with plans to create one of the state's first enchanced infrastructure-financing districts (EIFD), which allow counties and cities to use a portion of the increased property taxes of developed properties to reimburse themselves or private developers for infrastructure improvements.
And Chowchilla city officials announced this week the development of a specific plan to draw e-fullment centers and food processors to more than 2,000 acres of industrial land near Highways 99 and 152.
Brand said landing Amazon should send a message to other site selectors that Fresno is in business. As a councilmember he also authored the Economic Expansion Act, which provides incentives to developers of major projects that create jobs. Back in December the city council approved a package of $30 million over the next 30 years for Golden State FC LLC, the Amazon subsidiary heading the project.
Those funds would not come from the general fund, but the increased property taxes of the developed property, known as tax increment.
Brand's proposed fiscal 2017-18 budget includes an increased economic development budget to draw even more activity to the "triangle" near Highways 41 and 99 where beauty supply retailer Ulta plans to open an e-commerce center with 500-1,000 jobs next year as well.
The message: Fresno is open for e-commerce development.
"We are spreading the word as much as possible," Brand said.
Brand believes Amazon likely represents the single largest job creating project in Fresno.
According to Amazon, full-time employees "receive competitive hourly wages and a comprehensive benefits package, including healthcare, 401(k) and company stock awards starting on day one. Amazon also offers regular full-time employees maternity and parental leave benefits and access to innovative programs like Career Choice, where it will pre-pay up to 95 percent of tuition for courses related to in-demand fields, regardless of whether the skills are relevant to a career at Amazon. Since the program’s launch, more than 9,000 employees are pursuing degrees in game design and visual communications, nursing, IT programming and radiology, to name a few."
Excellent!
Get’s hot in Fresno,Modesto would have been a better choice.
I think Trump needs to raise the issue, a lot more than he has thus far.
I think everyone is sold out to China, and Trump really, really, really needs to support American jobs.
I understand North Korea is important, but not worth stopping doing anything on our terrible global trade balance. Especially with China.
Trump, this is important.
No doubt they chose Fresno, to be near tech giant Free Republic !!
That's true.
Unfortunately, 90% of the workers at the fulfillment center will be employed by a temp agency.
Amazon runs the same scam everywhere. They advertise as “Temp-to-Hire.”
The temp agency pays slightly above minimum wage, they imply you will become an Amazon employee within six months, but that always depends on “economic conditions.”
In reality, only elite super-producers get Amazon jobs.
Everyone else stays at minimum wage until they get fired, or quit in pure disgust.
By the way - 52.4% of Fresno County is Hispanic, and the county votes 75% Democrat.
He is a very evil man.
I have friends that work for the company. One retired 0-6 friend of mine lasted 2 months and promptly quit.
He said it was the worst organization to work for that he had ever been associated with.
Bezos bought the Washington Post for $250M almost immediately after Obama's CIA chief, the Muslim John Brennan, gave Amazon a taxpayer funded contract for $600M.
Screw Amazon. I used to love them, but after their lawsuit against the proposed temporary immigration ban from six Muslim countries and the continual jihad the Bezos-owned Washington Post has been conducting against Trump and normal America, I haven’t spent a penny there in four months. I was spending around $1500 a year there before their turn to the dark side.
I wish more conservatives would start boycotting them. (Full disclosure: still have Amazon Prime for the wife, though.)
“Those funds would not come from the general fund, but the increased property taxes of the developed property, known as tax increment.”
The money would be going to the general fund but for this diversion. The purpose of this TIF is to compete with another location that just did not offer a better deal. The politicans will say it is for job development etc.
[ He said it was the worst organization to work for that he had ever been associated with. ]
Sounds like my last gig. In that case, it wasn’t the guys at the top of the organization that were the problem, just the local bozos and there were several.
Can’t really work with some who have never worked in a best practices corporation. Not when they are completely clueless and worse, FAR worse, unwilling to learn.
Then they scratch their heads and can’t figure out why things keep going wrong.
It seems pervasive in this country these days.
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