Amazon plans to open fulfillment center on West Plains by mid-2020

Amazon plans to open its fulfillment center on the West Plains by mid-2020, with hiring to begin two months prior to completion of the project, according to an Amazon spokeswoman.

The Seattle-based company publicly revealed its plans for the $181 million fulfillment center in July 2018, after filing permit applications under “Project Rose” with Spokane County.

The fulfillment center, spanning 2.5 million square feet at 10010 W. Geiger Blvd., was initially anticipated to be completed this month.

The company will hire more than 1,500 workers at a minimum starting wage of $15 an hour to work alongside Amazon Robotics to pack and ship items such as games, housewares, school supplies and toys to customers. The fulfillment center could eventually employ more than 3,000 shift workers during the peak holiday retail season.

Full-time employees will be eligible for health insurance, a 401(k) and company stock awards. Some employees could also be eligible for tuition to cover courses in high-demand fields, such as information technology, according to the company.

Amazon announced Monday it will conduct job fairs on Sept. 17 at six location across the country in an effort to fill more than 30,000 vacant jobs – which include software engineers and warehouse workers – by early 2020.

Although the company is holding a job fair in Seattle, there are no plans to recruit employees for the Spokane fulfillment center, said Shevaun Brown, spokeswoman for Amazon, in an email Monday.

“Instead, we would focus our hiring efforts in Spokane to better engage local talent and closer to the actual (building) launch,” she said.

Amazon operates more than 100 fulfillment centers nationwide with growth attributed to its Amazon Prime service, which provides members with free, two-day shipping and same-day delivery in select ZIP codes.