Amazon to open fulfillment, delivery facilities in Va. Beach

Amazon.com will launch a fulfillment center and delivery station in Virginia Beach, creating an estimated 1,000 full-time jobs, Gov. Glenn Youngkin announced Monday.

Groundbreaking began Monday, according to Ian Allen-Anderson, an Amazon spokesperson. The fulfillment center will be located at the intersection of Harpers and Dam Neck roads, and the delivery station will be “at an adjacent site.” Amazon declined to disclose its expected capital investment.

Amazon anticipates launching operations at the delivery station in time for the 2024 holiday season and at the 650,000-square-foot robotics fulfillment center in 2025. Employees at this center will pack and ship small items like books, electronics and toys, according to a news release.

“Amazon’s cutting-edge fulfillment centers generate major capital investment and thousands of jobs and strengthen Virginia’s position as a logistics industry leader on the East Coast,” Youngkin said in a statement. “We see Amazon’s expanding footprint impacting economic growth and innovation across the commonwealth, and we will continue to compete for additional investment in Virginia.”

Amazon opened its first fulfillment center in the state in 2006, in Sterling. The Virginia Beach buildings will be the company’s 14th sorting and fulfillment center in Virginia and its 17th delivery station. The e-tailer expects to launch an Amazon robotics fulfillment center in Henrico County, announced in 2021, later this fall. In September 2022, Amazon opened a 3.8 million-square-foot robotics fulfillment center in Suffolk, the second largest building in the state, after the Pentagon. That facility cost $230 million to build, and it employs about 1,500 people.

Along with HQ2, the e-tailer’s $2.5 billion East Coast headquarters in Arlington, Amazon has 15 Whole Foods Markets, five Amazon Fresh stores and three Prime Now Hubs — located in Virginia Beach, Richmond and Springfield and focused on one- and two-hour deliveries to Prime members — in the state.

The Amazon Web Services subsidiary also operates multiple data centers in the state but has not disclosed the number. From 2011 to 2021, AWS invested more than $51.9 billion in Virginia, according to an economic impact statement released in June. In July, the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors voted to amend the county’s comprehensive plan to make data centers a targeted industry, and AWS has since filed three rezoning requests within the county and one in neighboring Caroline County.

“Virginia is a great state for business and gives us the opportunity to better serve our customers in the region,” Holly Sullivan, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide economic development and public policy, said in a statement. “We are excited for our future in the commonwealth, and for what this means for our customers as we continue to grow.”

Since 2010, the company has invested more than $109 billion in Virginia and has created more than 36,000 direct jobs and supported 200,000 indirect jobs in fields like construction and professional services, according to a news release, and has contributed more than $72 billion to the state’s gross domestic product.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with the city of Virginia Beach and the Hampton Roads Alliance to secure the project. The city will fund stormwater and road improvements between Dam Neck Road and London Bridge Road to provide access to the new facilities, and Dominion Energy will provide power to the sites.