BAZETTA TOWNSHIP, Ohio – Preliminary work is underway along Perkins-Jones Road where online retail giant Amazon is building a $30 million distribution center.
Front-end loaders, large backhoes and earth movers were busy this week preparing the 65-acre site, just east of the former Kmart distribution center. Much of the land has been cleared, and temporary gravel driveways are now installed to handle ingress and egress of operating equipment.
Amazon purchased the site Jan. 22 for $918,540, according to records from the Trumbull County auditor. Bazetta Township trustees announced the project in May but kept the identity of the end-user confidential.
The approximately 170,000-square-foot distribution center is expected to bring between 150 and 200 jobs to Trumbull County, said Michael Hovis, township trustee.
“They’re hoping to get it done by the first of the year,” he said.
Sitetech, an excavating and demolition company based in Grafton, Ohio, is contracted for the site preparation work, Hovis said. The company is also retained to perform site work for a new sewer line that would extend 2,100 feet east from the Amazon location along Perkins-Jones Road.
“We’ll probably start the sewer work in May or June,” as warmer weather moves in, Hovis said.
Baltimore-based Whiting-Turner will serve as the general contractor on the Amazon building, Hovis said. He added that the contractor would likely use some local subcontractors on the project as work moves forward.
The Bazetta center will be Amazon’s first newly constructed distribution center in the Mahoning Valley.
In 2019, Amazon opened a delivery site in a 43,200-square-foot building that once housed a FedEx operation at the Youngstown Commerce Park in North Jackson.