Amazon won’t say why it’s leasing 80,000 square feet in Boise. Here’s what we know.
While Amazon has delayed building a giant fulfillment center in Nampa, it’s set to open a smaller delivery station in Boise.
On July 30, Amazon submitted an application to remove partition walls, plumbing and other fixtures from a former FedEx ground delivery warehouse east of the Boise Airport.
A delivery station serves as the final point between an Amazon fulfillment center and a fleet of company delivery vans that rush packages to homes and businesses.
Amazon currently operates a local delivery station at 1411 3rd Ave. North, near Franklin Boulevard and I-84 in Nampa. It’s unclear whether that warehouse will continue operating after the Boise delivery center opens.
An Amazon spokesman did not reply to an email seeking comment.
Amazon plans a much larger regional fulfillment center in Nampa that, when built, is expected to have 3,000 employees in a building with 2.6 million square feet, the size of 15 Walmart Supercenters. It’s expected to cost $130 million.
A developer acting on Amazon’s behalf filed a proposal to build the fulfillment center in June 2018, but Amazon later put that plan on hold. Nampa officials say it could be another year before it’s built at the southeast corner of Star and Franklin Roads, kitty-corner from the Lactalis American Group cheese factory.
The roughly 80,000-square-foot Boise warehouse, located south of Interstate 84 and west of the East Gowen Road exit, has 18 semitrailer-truck dock doors and parking for 190 employee vehicles. An office takes up about 4,000 square feet.
It’s located just west of a 350,000-square-foot warehouse used by Shopko before that struggling retailer closed its Treasure Valley stores earlier this year and later closed all its stores nationwide.
The building was built in 2007 and expanded in 2012. FedEx moved to a larger warehouse at 6610 S. Elite Drive, about a mile west last year.
A listing brochure for the property listed a monthly rent of $38,988. The owner is listed as Parkway Center II Associates of Menlo Park, California, according to the Ada County Assessor’s Office.
Shrader & Martinez Construction of Sedona, Arizona, is listed as the contractor for the project at 6752 S. Business Way. The work is estimated to cost $47,900. Interior construction work will require a separate permit.
A delivery station with about the same space as the Boise one opened last fall in Centennial, Colorado, south of Denver. The Denver Post reported it employed more than 300 workers, not counting drivers.
In the past, packages went from big fulfillment centers to carriers such as UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service. Amazon has been building its own end-to-end delivery system. It now operates more than 75 delivery stations in North America, the Post reported, where Amazon drivers handle the deliveries.
This week, FedEx said it would stop ground deliveries for Amazon. FedEx warned last month for the first time in a government filing that Amazon’s fledging delivery business could lower prices, hurt its revenue and “negatively impact our financial condition and results of operations,” the Associated Press reported.
BoiseDev.com first reported on the Boise warehouse.
