Seefried Industrial Properties Delivers $237M Amazon Facility

Amazon Fulfillment Center, Stone Mountain, Ga. Image courtesy of Seefried Industrial Properties

Seefried Industrial Properties expands its list of projects developed for Amazon with the recent completion of a new 640,000-square-foot fulfillment center in Stone Mountain, Ga. The state-of-the-art, Atlanta-area facility carries a development price tag of approximately $237 million, according to the Georgia Department of Economic Development.

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Amazon’s newest fulfillment center has been in the works for a few years, originally appearing in local government documents as Project Rocket. Carrying the address of 2255 W. Park Place Blvd., the development occupies a 90-acre site straddling Gwinnett and Dekalb counties, roughly 20 miles east of downtown Atlanta. At 70 feet tall, the Macgregor Associates-designed building has the capacity to accommodate 3 million square feet of fulfillment space. As per Gwinnett County records, the distribution facility is the second-largest building in the municipality.

The Conlan Co. served as general contractor on Project Rocket, which holds the distinction of being Amazon’s first robotic fulfillment center in the State of Georgia. The e-commerce giant is leading the way in this cutting-edge logistics facility technology. “Amazon is providing a glimpse of the future within many of its fulfillment centers, where humans and robots work harmoniously to get packages to customers on time,” Amazon notes in a document posted on its corporate website. “Robots increase efficiency and safety at fulfillment centers. They make it possible to store 40 percent more inventory.”

Partnership for expansion

Seefried has developed more than a few fulfillment centers for Amazon. Most recently, the firm and joint venture partner Clarion Partners completed a 1.4 million-square-foot property in Deltona, Fla. And in August of this year, Seefried announced that it had joined forces with a private equity real estate fund advised by Crow Holdings Capital on the acquisition of a 35-acre site in Deer Valley, Ariz., where the partners will develop a last-mile delivery station for Amazon. Additionally, Amazon announced that the industrial real estate company would spearhead development of its 1 million-square-foot, Dallas-area project in Forney, Texas. With Amazon on a mission to drastically increase its fulfillment center portfolio across the U.S., Seefried may very well add even more such projects to its plate.

“We continue to invest meaningfully, including $9.4 billion in CapEx and finance leases in the second quarter alone, an increase of 65 percent year-over-year, primarily driven by investments in our fulfillment and logistics footprint,” Brian Olsavsky, CFO of Amazon.com Inc., said during the company’s second quarter 2020 earnings conference call on July 30. “In 2019, we increased network square footage by approximately 15 percent. This year, we expect a meaningfully higher year-over-year square footage growth of approximately 50 percent.”