Posted May 17, 2019
Bo knows books.
Auburn University great Bo Jackson was one of several people Thursday who took a special tour of Amazon’s new fulfillment center, under construction and set to open next year in Bessemer. And like the city’s legendary famous son, online retail mammoth Amazon looks for the robotic hub to do many things with speed, force and excellence.
“It’s impressive,” Jackson said. “Bessemer needs it.”
Amazon isn’t saying exactly when the 855,000-square-foot center will open next year, only that it will begin operating as customer need and supply dictate. But today’s tour gave a look into how the center will function once it’s up and running. Amazon looks to hire 1,500 employees for the center.
In building the center, workers used 15,000 tons of steel for a structure that covers 14 football fields. Amazon now has more than 100 distribution centers around the country, but the first one was barely a 10th the size of the Bessemer center.
The building will be divided into receiving and storing merchandise, then order fulfillment and shipping out. When up and running, it will hold millions of items and be able to dispatch more than 100,000 orders a day.