 |
Signs direct Amazon delivery trucks outside a 383,000-square-foot building at 9001 N. Wyoming Ave. in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.
Amazon is expanding again in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
The Seattle-based e-commerce giant is moving into a 383,000-square-foot building at 9001 N. Wyoming Ave. in the Crosstown Northwest Business Center in suburban Brooklyn Park.
Until recently, the space housed Atlanta-based packaging, paper and logistics company Veritiv. The 18-year-old building appears to be owned by a family trust based in Los Angeles.
Brooklyn Park Senior Planner Todd Larson confirmed that Amazon has begun renovations but did not give further details.
Credit: Clare Kennedy
A visit to the site (pictured, right) showed signs directing Amazon trucks, and that work led by Krusinski Construction of Oak Brook, Illinois, was already underway.
Krusinski has previously built e-commerce distribution and fulfillment centers in Joliet and Crest Hill, Illinois, according to its website. Amazon has warehouse facilities in both those cities.
Brokers at Cushman & Wakefield’s Minneapolis office are responsible for leasing at the location, but have declined to comment.
It is unclear precisely how Amazon will use 9001 N. Wyoming. Representatives at Amazon did not immediately respond to inquiries.
In 2016, Amazon moved into its main hub in the Twin Cities, a new 850,000-square-foot distribution center located in Shakopee, a suburb on the extreme southwest fringe of the metropolitan area about 30 minutes from Minneapolis’ downtown. The company has smaller, secondary locations in Shakopee, Eagan and Minneapolis proper, according to CoStar records and other sources.
The latest Amazon site is located just three miles south of an enormous retail fulfillment center planned for an unnamed tenant on a 70-acre site in Brooklyn Park’s NorthPark Business Center.
Codenamed “Hotdish,” the 2.6-million-square-foot, four-story retail fulfillment center is being proposed by Indianapolis-based Scannell Properties. At a meeting Wednesday night, Scannell Development Manager Dan Salzer told the city’s Planning Commission that the center would take three years to construct.
Salzer said the user, which he was contractually bound not disclose, will employ a total of 2,500 people over two shifts at the Hotdish site once it’s up and running.
Cushman & Wakefield brokers Mark Sims and Noam Newman are representing Scannell and declined to comment on the deal.
Steve Nilsson, a broker with Colliers’ Minneapolis office, said only Amazon, Target or Walmart have the need and resources to fill up a space of the size of Hotdish, adding that Brooklyn Park has a lot of attributes that would make it an attractive distribution site for Amazon.
The suburb has a strong labor force, a good stock of worker and executive housing and excellent transit connections, he said. The city is also on a planned light rail line, though that will take years to arrive.
One of Amazon’s competitors, Minneapolis-based Target, is already operating in Brooklyn Park with a second corporate campus just a few minutes down the road from the Hotdish site.
“Target chose Brooklyn Park for a reason,” Nilsson said on Tuesday.
