RICHMOND, Texas — (Realty News Report) — Construction has begun on an 850,000-square-foot Amazon e-commerce fulfillment center in Richmond, located west of Houston near the Grand Parkway.
Scheduled to open in 2021, the facility is expected to create approximately 1,000 full-time jobs, providing important economic relief to the Houston area, which has seen significant job losses since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Fort Bend Economic Development Council facilitated the agreement with Amazon.
“We’re proud that Amazon has chosen Fort Bend County for this significant investment,” said Fort Bend County Judge KP George. “The Fort Bend fulfillment center will generate 1,000 high-quality jobs for our community, adding tremendous value to our commercial sector.”
The 93.5-acre site at 10507 Harlem Road sits roughly midway between Highway 59 and Interstate 10, just south of the Westpark Tollway. That corridor, which connects Loop 610 to the Grand Parkway, has helped spur development into areas that were once considered remote exurbs.
The Amazon facility is adjacent to Aliana, a master-planned community that is emerging as one of the most active homebuilding locations in Texas, with a projected build-out of about 4,000 homes.
Trammell Crow Company, the Dallas-based developer founded in 1948 and now a subsidiary of CBRE, is leading development of the site.
“Significant planning has gone into this facility’s design, which allows for extensive use of robotics to further enhance Amazon’s robust fulfillment capabilities,” said Jeremy Garner, principal with Trammell Crow.
Land transaction: Tony Patronella and Jeanie Gibbs with Read King represented the seller, Q4 Interests. Stephen Schneidau of Cushman & Wakefield and Matt O’Brien of KBC Advisors represented Amazon, the purchaser of the land.
Development team: Ware Malcomb serves as architect of record, while Graycor Construction Company is the general contractor.
Engineering team: HSA & Associates, Langan Engineering and Jordon & Skala Engineers are providing civil and site engineering services, and The Harrington Group, Inc. is responsible for fire protection design.
This expansion is part of a broader trend: as online retail captures larger market share from traditional brick-and-mortar stores, logistics and distribution facilities continue to grow in scale and number. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated e-commerce adoption, further driving demand for fulfillment capacity.
“We’re delighted to continue our growth and investment in Texas, with our new fulfillment center in Richmond,” said Alicia Boler Davis, Amazon’s vice president of global customer fulfillment. “This new fulfillment center will create more than 1,000 new full-time jobs, in addition to the more than 20,000 current employees across the state, who receive industry-leading pay and benefits starting on day one.”
Amazon has been hiring rapidly nationwide. In March the company added 100,000 workers and in April announced plans to recruit an additional 75,000 employees.
Elsewhere in Texas, Amazon is building a 3.8-million-square-foot distribution facility on a 94-acre site near State Highway 130 in Pflugerville, a suburb of Austin. Construction on that project has already started and is informally known in the community by the code name “Project Charm.”
The Fort Bend County fulfillment center has been widely discussed within Houston’s real estate sector for several months, though no local project code name has been publicly identified.
June 19, 2020 Realty News Report Copyright 2020