Amazon Touts Creation of 400 Jobs at Roanoke Industrial Park Site, Once Tapped for Brewery

From a Roanoke industrial park, Amazon is using employed and contract drivers to deliver tens of thousands of packages a day regionally in a shift to streamline delivery.

The complex built by Amazon sits at the far end of the Roanoke Centre for Industry and Technology, past Orvis, Advance Auto Parts and Bimbo Bakeries, and rapidly joined the list of moderate-to-large employers by creating hundreds of jobs.

Guests toured the 5-month-old center Tuesday. It’s in the same location where the Deschutes Brewery company of Oregon planned and then cancelled a brewery. The brewer sold the land to Amazon last year and Amazon set to building the 100,000-square-foot center with docks for bulk package drop-off and another set of doors for delivery-van loading.

In October, when the pass-through facility opened, the city became one of 17 places in the state to have what Amazon calls a delivery station — a dedicated package hub responsible for taking boxes the last few miles to customer addresses.

Area deliveries were previously handled by UPS and FedEx, which will continue to be used to some extent.

Amazon declined to say how much it spent on the facility. However, a city manager report from Feb. 21 that was released to The Rambler on Wednesday noted, “Although Amazon does not release this information, total investment is estimated at $60 million with a mix of 200 full-time and part-time employees.”

The city valued the building at just over $14 million, according to its recent property assessments. The land cost Amazon $3.2 million and the company paid another $1.5 million to reimburse a federal agency that paid road costs on the condition that a manufacturer would occupy the site. 

So far, Amazon has hired 200 people to run the station, company spokesman Sam Fisher said. In addition, it contracts with third parties who have employed 200 others to drive, he said. All of the new jobs except those in management are part-time. The company contributes to employee retirement savings, but furnishes no health insurance to its part-time crews. They do, however, have access to Amazon wellness programs, officials said. Workers get a 30-minute lunch break plus two 15-minute other breaks per shift, officials said.

Everyone at the hub earns at least $18.50 an hour, Fisher said.

An employee bearing an Amazon ID card who was outside the facility confirmed that’s what he receives. The man declined to give his name, saying he did not know the company policy on workers talking to the press. He described himself as a computer programmer who enlisted with Amazon to earn extra income.

“I’m happy because the job, it’s not hard, it’s not difficult,” he said.

Are they good jobs? Yes, according to Roanoke City Council member Vivian Sanchez-Jones, who joined the tour. She cited the pay, opportunities for promotion and the facility’s location. It is a 10-minute drive east of downtown and on the bus line.

“What’s important is people have jobs,” Sanchez-Jones said.

The Oregon craft brewing company Deschutes announced to great fanfare in 2016 that it had picked Roanoke for a new East Coast production facility. Then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Deschutes executives visited the City Market building and clanked beers in a toast to an anticipated investment of at least $85 million and creation of a hundred-plus jobs.

Roanoke didn’t get the brewery, which would have had upsides. But the Amazon center has several plusses in the judgment of Roanoke’s director of economic development.

“This met a vital need, a kind of a box you need to check for your community,” Marc Nelson said. Given the inconsistency of the craft beer sector, “I would rather have this,” he said. “In the real world, this has longer staying power and a bigger economic benefit than a brewery.”

Under Roanoke’s real estate tax rate, Amazon’s property would net more than $200,000 annually to city coffers. 

As one of the world’s richest companies, Amazon has faced criticism over the years for its treatment of workers and attempts to scuttle unionization efforts at its warehouses. More recently, some activists have targeted Amazon, among other corporate giants, for boycotts for rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, as well as for billionaire owner Jeff Bezos’s embrace of President Donald Trump.

The tour provided insights into some of the logistics behind Amazon’s $638 billion made in digital commerce revenue last year. The warehouse is not one of the company’s massive fulfillment centers, where robots and humans pack consumers’ orders into cardboard boxes. Rather, it serves as a distribution point for packages bound for homes and businesses within several miles of the Roanoke region.

Goods arrive, usually after dark, at the rear docks from Amazon’s fulfillment center in Greensboro, North Carolina. Starting about 2:30 a.m., crews begin efforts to group the incoming packages by route. Everything goes into a square bag and onto a rolling rack. Racks are staged in long rows. In subsequent steps, workers roll the carts to waiting delivery vehicles that have pulled up outside the plant. The vehicles include large white vans, all gas-powered at this point, and drivers’ own cars and trucks. Amazon has set goals to expand its use of electric vehicles, said Jon Greeley, head of economic development in Virginia for Amazon.

Behind the wheel, the contract drivers don blue and gray Amazon vests. By 9:20 a.m., 70 vans had departed, with about 30 yet to leave. All of the delivery vehicles should be outbound by about 10:30 a.m., officials said.

“Everything that comes into this building leaves this building the same day,” said Patrick Hamilton, Amazon site leader. 

Jobs remain available. Amazon’s Roanoke center is hiring, as are its delivery contractors, Legacy Logistics and Fidelis Delivery Solutions, officials said.