Amazon will establish its eighth fulfillment center in East Tennessee, creating 800 full-time employees “to engage with advanced robotics.” Governor Bill Lee issued the announcement on Wednesday in a joint press release with Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD) Commissioner Bob Rolfe, and Amazon spokespersons.
Located in the city of Alcoa, the distribution center will overtake property that was once a local golf course near Alcoa Highway and Pellissippi Parkway. According to a press release issued by the county’s development cooperative, Blount Partnership, employees will receive a starting wage of $15 an hour with full benefits and other perks, including 20 weeks of maternal and parental paid leave.
Talks for establishing this latest fulfillment center, code-named Project Pearl, began about a year ago. This development comes almost a year after Amazon established a similar fulfillment center in Memphis.
The governor expressed marked enthusiasm for the company’s decision to choose Tennessee.
“Thank you very much, Amazon! We are very excited in Tennessee, especially in the midst of a pandemic, where we need hopeful signs of recovery,” stated Lee. “We all need to know that the future is bright for this state, and I am certainly excited for the future. This announcement today is an opportunity for us to be reminded of the hope that lies ahead for us.”
The distribution center will add onto over 25,000 jobs Amazon has created in Tennessee, and over $8.7 billion in investments.
“It is a testament to the strength of Tennessee’s business climate that companies are attracted to our state and choose to operate and expand here,” stated Rolfe.
Amazon spokespersons thanked the local communities for welcoming this expansion.
“We’re really excited to partner with you, invest in your community – and this is just day one of that partnership,” remarked Amazon’s head of worldwide economic development, Holly Sullivan.
Amazon’s other fulfillment centers are located in Charleston, Chattanooga, Lebanon, Memphis, Murfreesboro, and Nashville. The company’s current project to establish a downtown Nashville office, Operations Center of Excellence, is anticipated to bring in over 5,000 jobs to the metro area.
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Corinne Murdock is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and the Star News Network. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to [email protected].
I refuse to shop or work for the enemy Amazon! Their own employees now realize how evil bezos is!
Just say no thanks to Amazon Wonder why they didn’t go to Memphis.
We do not have good opinion of Amazon. They are trying to kill Free Speech.
They work there people to death for little money
Only company I have ever driven by their warehouse by coincidence thee times and seen ambulances out front! Amazon brings oppression to Tennessee!
Welcome to Tennessee Amazon with all of your progressive ideas and suppression of conservative social media outlets.
Why doesn’t anyone tell the taxpayers what these investments are going to cost us down the road via huge tax breaks for these companies? The media used to add that info to the story but that practice seems to have stopped. Decades ago, Nashville pols made all kinds of pretty promises to its taxpayers with all those business and companies moving in. They were going to practically rain money down on the area with all the new revenue. Then the companies made bank from all the tax breaks and the Nashville taxpayers had to make up for it with ever increasing property taxes. That’s why we don’t live there anymore.