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New Amazon Fulfillment Center Opening is Delayed

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Detroit’s new fulfillment center opening will be delayed until next year. The 3.8 million-square-foot fulfillment center was originally scheduled to be open by spring of 2022.  It’s being built on the city’s old Michigan State Fairgrounds on Woodward near Eight Mile. Developers faced backlash from community members who expressed concerns about hiring locally and environmental protections at the site. Amazon promised the city to recruit Detroit residents through the Detroit at Work employment program, beginning 5 months ahead of the facility’s opening. According to the city, 100 Detroit residents currently work at the fulfillment center. Recruitment efforts to fill those positions began earlier in 2022. Michigan currently has five Amazon fulfillment centers, one tech hub and seven Whole Foods Market locations.

 

Detroit Regional Partnership Aims to Entice Industrial Development

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The Detroit Regional Partnership has created the Verified Industrial Properties web portal, a repository for detailed information on sites in an 11-county focus area, including Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw and Livingston counties. The partnership views the clearinghouse as a way to get rid of leg work and improve the accessibility of metro Detroit site information. Property owners pay to have their sites listed in the web portal. Civil engineers have vetted nine sites, considering zoning, topography, geological conditions, transportation, wetlands, etc. Another 15 sites are under evaluation.  Some of the sites in process are large and prominent: The former Summit Place Mall property and 500+ acres of Lyon Township land. The partnership says its sites include urban, suburban and rural.

 

 

Amazon Pivots, Cancels Warehouse Plans in Ypsilanti Township

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After years of expansion in southeast Michigan, Amazon has begun scaling back by scrapping its plans for a new warehouse building in Ypsilanti Township. The plan had called for a 183,200-square-foot facility and had been dubbed “Project Yoga.” The cost of the project was $21.4 million and was to be constructed on about 30 acres of a 120-acre parcel.  Amazon has also indefinitely postponed it’s plans to build a new facility in Pittsfield Township. Amazon’s footprint in the region includes about 13 million square feet or more and includes redevelopments of the former Pontiac Silverdome site and the former Michigan State Fairgrounds property in Detroit. It’s finalizing construction on a Canton Township facility in the coming weeks.