Amazon offers exclusive look of its new facility in BR

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - For the first time, Amazon showed off the inside of a massive new fulfillment center at the old Cortana Mall site.

The development of the new fulfillment center is in full swing. The five-story, 3.4 million sq. ft. building will house the brand-new facility.

The site will serve as a place where more than a million packages will be picked, packed, and shipped anywhere in the country.

“Over the past couple of months, we have done so much work to get this site ready,” said Divina Mims with Amazon.

The location will be responsible for distributing smaller customer items such as books, toys, electronics, and other household items, 25 pounds or less.

“We are excited to call Baton Rouge home. This is a great opportunity for us to expand our network,” Mims continued.

Once construction wraps and the tape is cut, this will be Louisiana’s 2nd Amazon fulfillment center.

The first was built in Lafayette and the third one is on its way to Shreveport.

“Amazon has a distinct way of picking where we put new sites. We have been opening new facilities because of demand,” Mims added.

New sites mean new jobs. The new operations facility will create over 1,000 new, full-time jobs.

“A thousand jobs is huge and on top of that they will be higher paying. We will see great impact from that,” said Morgan Almeida with the Baton Rouge Area Chamber.

At the Baton Rouge Area Chamber, the economic development team has been working closely with Amazon throughout the whole process.

“We are very excited to see the over 200-million-dollar capital investment it brings,” Almeida explained.

However, the process doesn’t come without its bumps in the road.

“We started this a couple of years ago. It takes time to lay that infrastructure and get things ready,” Mims added.

The facility is expected to open by mid-2024.

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