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Amazon Says Pender Delivery Station Still On The Way; No Timeline Given

By Johanna F. Still, posted Sep 15, 2022
Delivery giant Amazon says it's still planning to follow through with plans to establish a delivery station in the Pender Commerce Park. (Photo courtesy of Amazon)
Amid national reports of dozens of cancellations of planned projects, a spokesperson says Amazon is sticking with its previously announced plans to build a delivery station in the Pender Commerce Park. 

A company representative told the Greater Wilmington Business Journal the proposed delivery station was still an active project, though there is no definitive timeline to complete it. 

“Wilmington is an undeveloped piece of land that we intend to use in the future,” an Amazon spokesperson said Thursday. 

Wilmington Business Development CEO Scott Satterfield said Amazon has already done a significant amount of work on the lots it owns in the Pender Commerce Park, including clearing land and preparing a pad. 

“We continue active dialogue with this client and expect the project to move forward,” Satterfield wrote in an email Thursday. “The construction timeline, to the best of our knowledge, is still to be determined.” Previously, WBD shared the facility would be completed by next year. 

After embarking on an aggressive post-pandemic expansion mission to meet soaring consumer activity, Amazon revealed in the spring it would begin scaling back on its previously announced plans to confront waning demand. 

Wednesday, a Wilmington delivery station was cited in a CNBC story sourced from a report produced by supply chain research firm MWPVL International Inc. A planned Wilmington delivery station was featured among 20 others nationwide in a CNBC map of nixed Amazon facilities, citing “no reason given” for the supposed cancellation. 

Through local development agency WBD, Amazon first announced plans on March 17 for a 142,000-square-foot delivery station outside of Wilmington that would create 100 jobs. The following week, Amazon.com Services LLC closed on two lots in the Pender Commerce Park next to Acme Smoked Fish, purchasing the roughly 54 acres from Pender County, according to county property records. 

At the time, Amazon appeared to have even grander plans in the works in the commerce park: A real estate firm closely linked with Amazon, Seefried Industrial Properties, was under contract to purchase an additional 150 acres of land in the park for a distribution center that would have created 1,000 jobs. But by April, the firm (which Amazon utilized to purchase the lots for the smaller delivery station in the park) canceled its contract with Pender County

Amazon has never publicly acknowledged this planned project or cancellation. 

​​Marc Wulfraat, founder of MWPVL International who produced the report that spurred the recent news coverage, said it’s possible his report could have intended to reference a canceled large-scale fulfillment center in the Wilmington region rather than a delivery station. Wulfraat’s records denote the cancellation as a delivery station, he said, “which could be erroneous.”  

“I’d have to look further as to why we had it classified this way,” he said.
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