Amazon on track for 2025 opening of robotic hub
ELKHART — Amazon expects to put its massive, high-tech fulfillment hub north of Elkhart into operation in late 2025.
Representatives of Amazon and contractor Ryan Companies lead tours of the 800,000-square-foot distribution hub for elected officials, business leaders and the media this week. The robotics fulfillment center is expected to be in operation by the fall of 2025, according to Kyle DeGiulio, a senior economic development manager for Amazon.
“There’s still quite a bit of work to be done, but work is actually happening to ensure we can launch in time next year,” he said Thursday. “A significant amount of material handling equipment will be going into this area, on this level as well as robotics on the floors above, which takes time.”
He described the cavernous space as a first-mile facility, where packages will originate and be sent out to local hubs to be sorted before delivery. DeGiulio said around 1,000 employees will work alongside mobile robots that will handle inventory.
“This type of building has more robotics than any other type of fulfillment operation at Amazon’s network. All the robotics that we have in this building are there to assist our employees, not to replace them,” he said. “The employees that will be working in this building will be working alongside robots and other technology on the inbound receiving and inventory. The outbound fulfillment side will all be supported by robots to make their jobs easier, safer, more ergonomically correct, all of the above.”
He said Amazon offers an average of $20.50 an hour, plus benefits. DeGiulio said it will take the company around two months to make all the hires.
He expressed confidence that they’ll be able to hit the target.
“A thousand people is a lot of people to hire. We’re pretty confident that our competitive pay and some of the benefits that I mentioned will make our jobs attractive. We’ve seen that elsewhere. And certainly, we can’t do that all by ourselves,” he said. “But it is a sprint. That two-month sprint program will tell a lot.”
Amazon announced the facility in October 2021. Before that, it was widely assumed that the company was behind a $200 million warehouse project nicknamed “Project Winnie” that had requested tax breaks from the county earlier in the year.
The facility was built on an extension of C.R. 4, north of the Indiana Toll Road, that was renamed in honor of the late congresswoman Jackie Walorski.
“This is going to be a very important location for us,” DeGiulio said. “In addition to that, we are opening a last-mile facility next year too. So for customers in this region, not only having this building here helps connect them to delivery, but also additional jobs being created in the City of Elkhart at that facility to help fulfill that customer promise that we make.”
