Amazon's new Pasco robotics facility has $150 million price tag
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Jan 25, 2022

Amazon.com's new robotic sortation center in Pasco County represents a $150 million capital investment.

The sortation facility, which first went public at the Pasco County Economic Development Council's annual luncheon on Jan. 20, will be 517,220 square feet in the 127-acre Eagle Industrial Park off of state road 52 in San Antonio. It will employ 500 people.

The robotic center is considered a mid-mile facility — a product's stop between a larger distribution center and Amazon's smaller last-mile facilities — and will serve Amazon facilities across the Southeast via Interstate 75. The San Antonio center will receive packages from Amazon Air hubs, the company said.

Amazon has created new roles within the robotic sort centers for managing the robots, the EDC said, and the e-commerce giant offers on-the-job training to learn "how the robots work, how they are programmed and how they read and navigate the center floor," according to the EDC.

“This is a unique facility supporting a lot of technology and robotics,” Pasco County Commission chairman Ron Oakley said in a statement. “I am thrilled to have such a cutting-edge facility join the evolving SR52 and I-75 corridor.”

The San Antonio facility was one of four Amazon confirmed Tuesday. The others include a 634,000-square-foot fulfillment center in Daytona Beach; a delivery station in Port Saint Lucie; and a "print on demand center" in Orlando that opened in late 2021. (The Orlando facility prints books on demand when Amazon customers order them.)

Those four facilities represent a total of 1,500 jobs, Amazon said.

“Given Eagle Industrial Park’s location and the availability of a quality workforce in the region, Pasco County was a natural fit for Amazon’s new sort center,” Sam Blatt, Amazon economic development manager, said in a statement. “It’s been a pleasure working with the Pasco County staff and the team at the Pasco EDC.”

Eagle Industrial Park was prepped for the development via Pasco County's Ready Sites program, which was funded by the Penny for Pasco sales tax. The program preps large tracts of land for development, getting them shovel-ready for companies like Amazon to expedite the permitting and construction process.

“This is such a great win for the county in terms of investment and jobs, and we couldn’t be happier that they chose a site from our Ready Sites Program,” Bill Cronin, president and CEO, Pasco EDC, said in a statement. “The Ready Sites Program was created to help big projects like this close and locate quickly and that’s exactly what they are doing.”

The robotic sortation center is Amazon's second Pasco facility. The company also has a last-mile facility there; it opened in 2021.