Online retail giant giant Amazon officially announced on Wednesday that the company’s newest fulfillment center is well underway in Turlock, bringing over 1,000 jobs to the region.
The leased building is currently under construction on Fulkerth Road behind Dust Bowl Brewing Co. just off Highway 99, and when completed it will span 1,080,308 square feet. According to Amazon, the new warehouse will open in 2022 and serve as a fulfillment center where products enter the warehouse, are stored, purchased online, packed and shipped. In short, it’s where Amazon orders will be fulfilled.
“The many hundreds of jobs that Amazon will create in Turlock are important to our city and region. We appreciate Amazon’s truly significant investment in the Turlock Regional Industrial Park and their utilization of our streamlined approval process to create both year-around and seasonal jobs which provide both kinds of job opportunities in our community,” Turlock’s acting City Manager Sarah Eddy said.
According to Eddy, Amazon paid all development impact fees prior to receiving a building permit and, in accordance with the City’s Master Plan and General Plan standards, will be required to widen Fulkerth Road along the project frontage and install a traffic signal at the Fulkerth Road and Tegner Road intersection prior to occupying the building.
Amazon dedicated 35 feet of additional right of way along Fulkerth Road to widen the southern side of the road, Eddy said, as well as along the frontage of 3130 Fulkerth Rd. Additionally, the proposed warehouse use is not a high water user and is not expected to put a strain on Turlock’s water supply.
The warehouse is just the latest addition to Turlock’s ever-expanding industrial park.
“With Amazon’s high brand identification, we certainly hope it increases interest in the Turlock Regional Industrial Park,” Eddy said. “But we’ve found consistently high interest in the park since the City first spearheaded the streamlined approval approach utilized there.”
The Turlock fulfillment center is one of Amazon’s latest projects in California, where the company has invested $81 billion since 2010. The new warehouse will add 1,000 more jobs to the 150,000 jobs Amazon has already provided throughout the state, which typically pay at least $15 per hour to start.
“This addition will definitely be felt,” City Councilmember Andrew Nosrati said. “1,000 employees coming into our city on a daily basis has the potential to stimulate much of our local economy, however this paces even more urgency for this Council to act on the housing crisis that will most certainly be exacerbated.”
Turlock Mayor Amy Bublak said that despite California’s reputation as anti-business, the industrial park’s wide variety of production plants show that Turlock is an exception. Amazon will join the likes of Blue Diamond Growers, U.S. Cold Storage and Valley Milk, to name a few.
“Who wouldn’t be thrilled to add Amazon’s name recognition to the top-tier companies that have chosen the Turlock Regional Industrial Park as home for multimillion dollar facilities with job opportunities?” Bublak said. “California is a difficult climate for new businesses, but this City Council is committed to making Turlock a thriving location to create or expand businesses.”
