‘It makes sense for Amazon to locate locally.’ Experts: Manatee facility will grow economy
When news broke recently that online retail giant Amazon had put up a 321,244-square-foot distribution center in southern Manatee County, the reception was overwhelmingly positive.
Job-creation types, academics, and many consumers celebrated the news of the new facility, while neighbors marveled at the precision of construction crews who put the building up in a matter of days.
“It was like a symphony of machines. We watched them put up 12 walls in one day,” said Shadrach Thien, owner of SMP Maintenance, a company located across the street from the new distribution center. “When you’re the richest man in the world, when you have that much money, you can get the best construction crews in the business.”
Mike Snipes, an economics instructor at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee, said that Amazon approaches a move into a new community much like Walt Disney did in the 1960s. Disney famously bought up huge swaths of land near Orlando for the future Disney World. None of those land deals had Walt’s name on them to keep his plans secret and to avoid driving up the price of land.
When the application for the distribution center at 2200 Tallevast Road, just off U.S. 301, was submitted June 24, 2020, it was by Ryan Companies US Inc., of Minneapolis., for a warehouse and accessory office support space for a package delivery service.
Not until the building went up in March was there any public indication that Amazon had arrived.
Geri Lopez, director of redevelopment and economic opportunity for Manatee County government, says, however, that county officials knew that Ryan did a lot of development work for Amazon, and fast-tracked the project.
In addition, the county provided $1.35 million in incentives to help facilitate infrastructure, including a traffic signal at the entrance to the distribution center, a turn lane, and upgrades to a portion of the two-lane spine road.
The county considered the new Amazon center a “catalytic project” that would help build the tax base in the county’s Southwest District, and spur development of good-paying, quality jobs. She estimated Amazon’s capital investment in the community at $33 million.
There are also opportunities for contract drivers and smaller operations, Lopez said.
While an Amazon spokesman said the distribution center will be open in time for the peak holiday shopping season, the company is already advertising online for workers in the Bradenton area.
Sharon Hillstrom, president and CEO of the Bradenton Area Economic Development Corp., said Amazon does extensive research and is very strategic about moving into a new area.
“When you think about the growth in the Bradenton area, it makes sense for Amazon to locate locally,” Hillstrom said. “It’s not surprising to me.”
Amazon also helps bring visibility to the Bradenton area, and gives other companies another reason to take a second look at Manatee County.
Companies from all over the United States are coming to to the Bradenton area and local companies are expanding as well.
“All of this suggests that this is a place to do business,” Hillstrom said.
Clearly, Amazon understood Manatee County and Bradenton very well. In 2014, it opened a 1 million-square-foot warehouse, what it calls a fulfillment center, near Ruskin off Interstate 75. Starting with 1,000 employees, within a few years it had added another 1,500.
In 2017, when Amazon announced it was searching for an east coast headquarters to augment its original location in Seattle, more than 200 communities around the United States submitted applications.
Among those were three applications for HQ2 from the Bradenton-Sarasota area:
▪ The CORE Campus at Lakewood Ranch. CORE, an acronym for Collaboration Opportunities for Research and Exploration,” a 305-acre biotech business campus located north of State Road 70 along Lakewood Ranch Boulevard.
▪ Homebuilder and developer Carlos Beruff filed papers for 900 acres along Moccasin Wallow Road near Interstate 75.
▪ Lakewood Ranch Corporate Park, the largest park of its kind in the Bradenton-Sarasota area.
None of the three local applications were chosen by Amazon. The eventual nod for HQ2 went to Arlington, Va., and a portion of that was spun off to Long Island City, N.Y. Amazon collected a massive amount of information about communities around the United States that would be willing to offer incentives to attract the business during its H2Q search.
Although Manatee County did not get HQ2, it did get an Amazon distribution center in 2018 at 2906 Corporate Way, Palmetto, in the Gulfcoast Corporate Park. It remains unclear how or if the Corporate Way facility might be affected by the new Tallevast facility.
What is known was contained in an email from Amazon spokesman Owen Torres earlier this month:
“We are excited to increase our investment in Manatee County with a new delivery station to provide fast and efficient delivery for customers, and provide hundreds of job opportunities for the talented local workforce. The delivery station will power Amazon’s last-mile capabilities to enhance our customer experience in the metro area.”
Justin McDonald, an economics instructor at State College of Florida, is familiar with Amazon’s fulfillment centers.
Amazon is known for paying well, no less than $15 an hour, and for its extensive use of cobots working with humans, McDonald said.
The artificial intelligence in cobots helps it organize and handle products in a highly efficient way.
Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud platform, has also played a significant role in the company’s success. The company makes billions of dollars in revenue by selling excess capacity.
Amazon got a big boost during the COVID-19 pandemic when many consumers stayed at home, and turned more than ever to online shopping, McDonald said.
Manatee County should look for the multiplier effect from the new jobs created by Amazon.
“Anytime you have jobs created locally, hopefully they spend the money with local businesses and it compounds,” McDonald said.
Eddie Sanchez, a finance instructor at USF Sarasota-Manatee, formerly worked on Wall Street as a portfolio manager and securities analyst.
“Amazon helps keep inflation down and prices low,” Sanchez said.
“Their customer service is A Plus. We never have a problem with their service or their products. Shareholders’ stock has done fabulously. On the other hand, do they crowd out small business? They probably do,” he said.
Amazon also recently opened a distribution center in Venice.
“Delivery stations enable Amazon Logistics to supplement capacity and flexibility to Amazon’s delivery capabilities to support the growing volume of customer orders. Additionally, the station will create hundreds of full time and part time jobs, starting at $15 per hour,” Amazon spokesman Torres previously told the Herald in an email..
“I think Amazon is going to be good for the area,” Sanchez said. “People count on them for good customer service and cheap prices. We don’t want inflation. And they employ people.”
This story was originally published July 16, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
