Amazon is opening a new sorting facility in Brooklyn Park that will employ 450 people, the retailing giant's latest expansion in the Twin Cities.
The 350,000-square-foot building, the company's fourth delivery-related operation in the Twin Cities, is located at 9001 Wyoming Av. N. The center is expected to open later this fall, and Amazon has started hiring for it this week. The 450 jobs are part-time.
"They expect people to be working soon," said Jeff Lunde, Brooklyn Park's mayor.
Amazon has leased an existing building at the site and has renovated it in recent months, Lunde said.
The new Amazon location is separate from a much larger fulfillment center project planned for Brooklyn Park, a 2.6 million-square-foot building that's projected to generate up to 2,500 jobs.
Brooklyn Park officials won't disclose the prospective tenant's name, and Amazon won't comment on the matter — though it would seem to be a logical fit. The new fulfillment center would be located near 109th and Winnetka avenues close to Hwy. 169.
Amazon already has an 885,000-square-foot fulfillment center in Shakopee with more than 1,500 employees. The company also operates a sorting facility in Shakopee. At Amazon's many fulfillment centers, the company fills customer orders from inventory on site. Sorting centers don't carry inventory; they are transshipment sites.
Amazon also has a delivery station in Eagan, and employs about 150 tech workers at an office in Minneapolis' North Loop.
Just four years ago, Seattle-based Amazon had no physical presence in Minnesota.
Representatives for Amazon said Wednesday the company is also hiring more than 1,000 seasonal workers at its various Minnesota fulfillment and delivery operations. The company, which said it has more than 3,000 full-time and part-time workers in Minnesota, has three hiring events scheduled over the next week in Brooklyn Park and Maple Grove.
The fate of the Brooklyn Park fulfillment center with the mystery tenant — dubbed Project Hotdish by the city — could be decided by the end of November.
The Brooklyn Park Planning Commission recently recommended against a change to the city's development plan for the Project Hotdish site.
Under the city's current land-use plan, the site — known as the NorthPark Business Center — is slated for several small buildings, not one very large building.
The Planning Commission is concerned that if a new interchange isn't built off Hwy 169 at 101st Avenue before the fulfillment center is built, there could be traffic issues, said Todd Larson, Brooklyn Park's senior planner.
About 210 trucks would be entering and exiting the new fulfillment center each day.
The city is now studying those traffic concerns, and the Brooklyn Park City Council is expected to take up the matter on Nov. 26.
Mike Hughlett • 612-673-7003
