April 08--The two warehouses Amazon will open in Baltimore are not intended for its new grocery service, according to the developer of the facility.
The online retailer is in the middle of expanding its shipping facilities in pursuit of cheaper, faster shipping. Last fall, it announced plans for a one-million-square-foot distribution center on Broening Avenue expected to bring about 1,000 jobs. The one-story building will be used as a fulfillment center, where employees pack orders, said Brian Strohl of Duke Realty, which is developing the former General Motors site in East Baltimore.
A second, 345,000-square-foot warehouse on Holabird Avenue, which received a go-ahead from the city Building Department last week, will be used as a "sortation center," where the boxes are organized into shipping zones, he said. That warehouse can employ up to about 325 people, according to its building permit.
The smaller warehouse had prompted speculation that Amazon would use it to roll out its AmazonFresh service, currently available in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Strohl wrote in an email that a plan for another warehouse to expand AmazonFresh to the Baltimore region is "only a possibility right now. Nothing concrete."
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