Amazon opens career center, two distribution facilities in Hampton Roads

Amazon.com Inc. has launched a career center and two delivery stations in Hampton Roads, it announced Wednesday.

The Amazon Career Center opened last week at 1989 S. Military Highway in Chesapeake and will serve as a hiring and orientation hub for Amazon’s facilities in Chesapeake, Suffolk, Norfolk, Hampton and Virginia Beach.

One delivery station opened in mid-June at 1400 Sewells Point Road in Norfolk. The other, which opened in mid-August, is a 111,600-square-foot facility at 223 W. Mercury Blvd. in Hampton.

“We would like to thank Amazon for their investment in this state-of-the-art distribution facility,” Hampton Mayor Donnie Tuck said in a statement. “A generation of Hampton residents did much of their shopping at the former Kmart on this site, and now the redeveloped building will serve a new generation of online shoppers.”

A delivery station creates on average 100 to 150 full- and part-time associate jobs “in addition to hundreds of driver opportunities” with wages of at least $15 per hour, the company said. Amazon claims to have created more than 27,000 jobs in Virginia since 2010.

Delivery stations are the last step in Amazon’s ordering process. Nearby Amazon Fulfillment and Sortation Centers send packages to these stations, where they are loaded into vehicles and delivered to customers.