“The facility will be used to support our customer fulfillment operations in the area,” an Amazon spokeswoman said.
Amazon signed a lease on Sept. 17 for the 264,000-square-foot building in Hebron at the LogistiCenter industrial park, according to a new Colliers International real estate research report.
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Loren DeFilippo, Ohio director of research with Colliers, said Amazon has been expanding through new giant 1-million-square-foot fulfillment centers but also with a host of smaller types of buildings like the new Hebron lease as it fills out its network and gets closer to consumers front doors.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a small deal for them, but it’s a different function,” DeFilippo said.
Amazon is also shopping around the country for hundreds of much smaller spaces to lease — maybe 10,000 square feet — and has been looking at options around the Cincinnati area for these smaller spaces, he said.
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DeFilippo said Amazon is trying to control the “last mile,” the industry phrase for the last leg of delivery. As e-commerce companies like Amazon grow, they have been racing to control the entire delivery process in order to be faster, more reliable, and more efficient. This means a large network of small locations to speed the delivery process to people’s homes.
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The apparent new lease in Hebron is in addition to the more than $1 billion Prime Air hub Amazon is working on by the Cincinnati airport.
Amazon is also planning a giant fulfillment center in Monroe. With the aid of hefty tax credits, the company plans to create more than 1,000 full-time jobs at a 1-million-square-foot warehouse in the Warren County portion of Monroe.
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