Amazon is coming to the Rochester area.
It’s not the company’s much touted ‘HQ2‘ which Rochester and Buffalo worked on together to make a bid for; officials already found out some weeks ago that won’t be happening.
But late Tuesday afternoon, Monroe County Executive Cheryl Dinolfo revealed that Amazon will be bringing one of its distribution centers to the Town of Henrietta. It will be located in a 70,000 square foot building on Clay Road.
Both Dinolfo and developer Frank Imburgia indicate this project will involve a ‘significant’ number of jobs, but they are not able yet to provide any details on just how many jobs are involved.
But the county executive says this is a big win for the region.
“Not only is Monroe County gaining a global e-commerce leader, Amazon is delivering jobs to local people, to our local families, today is a huge win for the County of Monroe.”
Dinolfo also says the county will be making an investment in the project through Imagine Monroe, the county agency that often provides tax and other incentives, but no specifics on that are available right now.
Imburgia said it only took about 45 days to get the lease deal and various approvals together to get the distribution center here.
“One of the things that we discovered with Amazon really quick right off the bat is that they move extremely fast and they want to get more of these procurement centers open as fast as possible.”
Both Dinolfo and Imburgia believe that the information the Rochester area submitted in the bid for the second Amazon headquarters may have helped convince the online retailing giant to locate a distribution center.
Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Bob Duffy is not predicting just how many jobs Amazon will bring to Henrietta.
“You know in terms of jobs, Amazon is known for having considerable robotics operation in their centers like this, but I would hope there will be some really nice job numbers that come, not sure what they’ll look like, but looking forward to it.”
In any case, Duffy says this is good news for the region.
“Anytime Amazon will come and invest in the Rochester Finger Lakes region it’s a good thing, so I was very happy to hear the news today. I’m waiting to hear more in terms of how many jobs they are projecting, but whenever Amazon comes to a community or region I think it’s very, very positive.”
