Why Amazon opened three large warehouses in Phoenix market & ramps up Arizona hiring

A thundering roar of jets accompanied the opening of Amazon‘s newest warehouse on Oct. 23 in metro Phoenix, just minutes away from Luke Air Force Base in the Glendale area.

The 1 million square-foot building, located at 15301 W. Northern Ave., is one of three that opened this fall in the West Valley to bolster Amazon.com Inc.’s (Nasdaq: AMZN) expanding logistics infrastructure in Arizona.

The retail giant, which employs 36,000 in Arizona, has continued to grow its presence here. It recently paid $277 million for a site in Phoenix for a potential data center project in Laveen and unveiled plans to debut its drone delivery technology in Tolleson by the end of 2024.

Amazon signed on earlier this year for three new facilities in Glendale, Goodyear and Buckeye — each totaling more than 1 million square feet — to grow its inbound cross-dock operations.

All three buildings will be able to to process 1 million boxes weekly and employ up to 2,000 people per location at full capacity, potentially bringing 6,000 new jobs to the area.

These warehouses will serve as the first touch point for product from third-party vendors before those items are further sorted and distributed downstream to Amazon’s other cross-dock and fulfillment centers in the region. Currently more than 60% of items sold on Amazon are from third parties.

Prior to the inbound cross-dock facilities, vendors had to ship their products to more than 50 different Amazon centers across the U.S. in order to reach their customers. But now they will only have to ship items to one of Amazon’s inbound cross-dock warehouses. The e-commerce behemoth will take care of the rest.

“Our goal is to improve product placement and ensure that we can get the right items to the right destination,” said Eric Langerman, the site leader for Amazon’s new Glendale location, called GEU2. “This is part of our cross-dock system to improve regionalization.”

Amazon ramps up Arizona hiring

Amazon has opened nearly 40 of these facilities across the United States in an effort to further streamline shipping and logistics for sellers. The Glendale facility, for example, will receive boxes from vendors that will then be sorted and distributed to five other cross-dock facilities in the Phoenix market.

While many boxes will remain intact as they move through the inbound cross-dock facility, about 20% have to be broken down and sorted.

“The other 80%, we’re receiving the freight that goes straight on the inbound conveyance directly to the outbound conveyance and our associates load it directly onto the trailer,” said Langerman.

Amazon’s inbound cross-dock locations are set up with more people than some of its other facilities to make sure the product moves through a sprawling conveyer system to their next destinations. These warehouses also heavily rely on Amazon’s software system for sorting and inventory management.

Hiring has already ramped up for the new West Valley warehouses.

Amazon has brought on about 300 employees each for its Glendale and Goodyear facilities, while its Buckeye facility opened in September and has hired more than 300 people so far. By next week, the Glendale facility will have hired on an additional 300 people and will continue to expand as the holidays near.

Industrial vacancy has creeped up over the past year in the Phoenix metro but is expected to stabilize going into 2025 as leasing remains steady and construction continues to slow down. The West Valley has remained a big attraction for industrial development and leasing because of its proximity to California and fast-growing population.