Preparation creates opportunity for Vigo County Amazon project
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The president of the Terre Haute Economic Development Corp. says Amazon’s plan to build a delivery center in Vigo County is a dividend being paid on the investment that the county has made in the Vigo County Industrial Park.
The Vigo County Redevelopment Commission on Tuesday approved the project, which will see a more than $10 million investment from Amazon and the addition of up to 100 jobs.
“We’re just thrilled to have Amazon in our community,” Steve Witt said. “It’ll be a great benefit to their customers and clientele within about an hour radius of Terre Haute and Vigo County.”
Witt told Inside INdiana Business that Amazon sought out Vigo County for the facility because of the preparations that had been made.
“We had all the utilities right there ready to go, and literally all they have to do is just build and hook on,” he said. “So I think that greatly helps their timetable. We take pride in the fact that we have such robust utilities and infrastructure in the industrial park that we can accommodate large and smaller projects at the speed of the what the company needs to do.”
Witt noted that Amazon first contacted local officials about the project last summer.
The 47,000-square-foot facility will be built on 28 acres of land. It is being developed by Indianapolis-based Ambrose Property Group, which will sell the building to Amazon upon completion.
The facility will be part of Amazon’s Last Mile Delivery Program, serving customers within one hour of the building.
The project is still in the design phase, and Witt said construction is expected to begin this year and be operational by the end of 2027.
City and county officials are excited for the project, Witt said, which comes just months after Oregon-based Entek broke ground on a $1.5 billion battery component manufacturing campus at the industrial park that is expected to bring 650 jobs to the county.
“We were very fortunate in September for the Entek lithium-ion battery project to break ground, and so they’re on site, getting started,” he said. “Then to follow up in a relatively short time with the Amazon announcement is really a great thing for us in our community, because we don’t know when the next win is going to be, if you will. So we take them as they come, and we’re always working for the next opportunity.”