JUPITER — Amazon on Thursday announced plans to expand its presence in Palm Beach County with the construction of a new fulfillment center near Jupiter, a move it said would bring “hundreds of full-time jobs” to the area.
Amazon said in a statement Thursday that the new facility will create “hundreds of full-time jobs.”
The company, the world’s biggest online retailer, recently broke ground on a 1 million square-foot facility on 100 acres in the Palm Beach Park of Commerce, which lies west of Jupiter near the Beeline Highway.
The facility will house a distribution center for large items, such as mattresses, kayaks, grills and exercise equipment.
It will be the third Amazon facility planned for Palm Beach County within the past year.
The company announced in July that it plans to open a delivery station in Boca Raton this year. Last October, it opened a 96,000-square-foot delivery warehouse on Beleverde Road near Florida’s Turnpike west of West Palm Beach.
“It’s a big win for us,” Kelly Smallridge, president and CEO of the Business Development Board of Palm Beach County, said Thursday. “Amazon clearly realizes that there’s a demand here in Palm Beach County.”
“We really wanted to win this for our residents,” Smallridge said. “We were dealing with, prior to COVID about a 3.5 percent unemployment rate to one that’s probably 14 percent today. We wanted to win because we knew that it would mean jobs for Palm Beach County residents.”
She said the county’s Planning, Zoning, and Building Department’s expedited permitting program played a critical role in making the project happen.
Amazon operates fulfillment and sortation centers in Miami, Jacksonville, Davenport, Orlando, Ruskin, and Lakeland.
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