Amazon’s Burlington delivery station has come out of mothballs.
An Amazon spokesperson said the distribution warehouse — originally anticipated to begin handling packages as early as 2022 — is now open just west of Burlington near Skagit Regional Airport at 12163 Bay Ridge Drive.
“We’ve started initial operations at our Burlington delivery station,” an Amazon spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We’re grateful for the support of our local partners and the team is ready to ramp up at this facility and deliver for customers in the area.”
Amazon didn’t provide any details beyond confirming that the station was open. But Skagit County records indicated the nearly 112,000-square-foot facility received final approval for its outstanding building permits by Aug. 22, except for signage and EV charging stations.
A Cascadia Daily News visual journalist described a busy parking lot on Friday, Aug. 30, with delivery vans coming and going, Amazon semitruck trailers on the lot and in bays, and apparently temporary Amazon signage on site.
Hiring underway
Delivery stations are part of Amazon’s “last mile” strategy, the final step in getting packages to customers’ doors. Typically, packages arrive at a station before they are sorted and loaded into vans for delivery in a roughly 45-mile radius around the facility, according to supply chain and logistics consulting firm MWPVL International. That would put Skagit, Whatcom and Island counties within driving range of the new delivery station.
Amazon generally works with independent Delivery Service Partners that use Amazon vans and hire drivers for the routes. One such firm, Seattle Final Mile, recently posted on Facebook and ZipRecruiter that it was looking for more than 100 delivery drivers who could handle “up to 150-250 packages a day” working from the Burlington delivery station.
Amazon itself said in March 2023 — when a spokesperson confirmed that the delivery station was still in its plans — it would eventually “look to begin hiring hundreds of employees and providing good-paying jobs for the region.” This August, Amazon’s job site posted open positions in Burlington for Driver Trainer and Delivery Station Customer Service Associate roles.
A delayed opening
The delivery station was originally announced in 2021 with an expected completion date of spring 2022. In August 2022, the Skagit Valley Herald reported the center was “nearing completion.”
However, around the same time, Amazon was pulling back on a number of its construction projects and closed some distribution facilities nationwide as consumer online buying patterns shifted after the earlier pandemic surge. Burlington, while apparently never canceled, was put on hold.
Then, a year ago in August 2023, Amazon opened a Snohomish County fulfillment center in Arlington, reported to be the company’s largest warehouse in Washington state. The new Burlington facility one county away will be Amazon’s only delivery station north of Everett, based on MWPVL data.
A 2024 study released by Amazon on its economic impact estimated that a typical mid-sized county that received an Amazon investment had, on average, 4,400 more new jobs than a similar county that didn’t receive an investment by the company. In an August announcement accompanying that economic report, Amazon said it had 12 delivery stations in Washington state.
Frank Catalano writes about business and related topics for CDN; reach him at frankcatalano@cascadiadaily.com.
