CLEVELAND — Crews are working at the Madison Industrial Park site at 10801 Madison Avenue in Cleveland to create what will become an Amazon Last Mile Facility, Cleveland City Council member Brian Mooney confirmed.
Mooney said the original plan was to have the facility operating by the end of 2021, but an Amazon spokesperson said, “The site expects construction to be completed and operations to launch sometime in early 2021."
The facility is expected to bring about 400 jobs that pay $15-18 per hour to Cleveland's West Side. The facility will be a Last Mile facility, meaning much of the traffic around it would be Amazon vans going into the community to deliver packages directly to nearby homes.
“Those are good paying jobs in the neighborhood,” said Mooney. “It’ll have an economic spillover to the neighborhood,” as those workers will likely frequent local businesses for gas, food and other uses."
One existing building on the site is actively being outfitted right now for its new use.
News 5 Cleveland reported that the first building was part of a light industrial construction increase in the last few years as e-commerce sales skyrocketed, necessitating more space to store and organize orders.
Mooney said one important aspect of the project is that Amazon declined to pursue a tax abatement. Mooney estimates the City of Cleveland and the local school district will get between $1.5 to $2 million dollars in tax revenue that it wouldn’t have received if Amazon used an abatement.
West 106th Street’s new layer of asphalt is tied directly to the new project.
“I was willing to move heaven and earth to repave the street,” said Mooney, saying he wanted to do whatever he could to make sure Amazon committed to the West Side location. “We can’t afford to turn away good paying jobs, especially 400 of them with possible expansion.”
History of the site
The intersection of West 106th Street, Madison Avenue and Berea Avenue has a history of industry, although much of it is substantially heavier than package distribution.
Parrish and Bingham CO. was founded in 1894, originally creating trolly and bicycle frames, according to The Cleveland Memory Project.
By the 1930’s, the company had become Midland Steel Products, making automotive frames and axles. “It quickly became the largest producer of automobile frames,” according to the Case Western Reserve University Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.
“The West 106th Street plant became one of the central suppliers of automotive manufacturing components in the country, and "the largest producer of automotive frames,” writes The Cleveland Memory Project.
During World War II, the West 106th Street location made, “jeep and truck frames as well as parts for shells and tanks.”
By the 1970s a new focus on aerospace and electronics meant that nearly 800 people were employed along West 106th Street.
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