Plans show Amazon building massive five-story project at Foundation Park
Nov. 30, 2020
Building plans filed with the city of Sioux Falls show that Amazon plans to construct a five-story distribution center at Foundation Park.
The plans show a first floor spanning nearly 635,000 square feet.
The total finished space on the five stories inside equals nearly 3 million square feet, making it by far the largest building in Sioux Falls and reaching 100 feet into the air.
The plan for the ground floor includes mostly warehouse space, with about 34,000 square feet split between the main office, recruiting office, break rooms and drivers lounge. The main office includes a classroom, training rooms, employee locker rooms and general office space.
The upper four levels plus a mezzanine also are mostly warehouse space, with break rooms.
The city recently issued a foundation permit for $6.5 million to Amazon’s general contractor for the project, Minnesota-based Ryan Cos.
Site work at the 80-acre Foundation Park property has been underway since mid-October. The building pad is already done.
Amazon has “nothing new to share at this time,” regarding its plan for the building, a spokesperson said.
The company typically releases some information for its fulfillment center projects, including the number of jobs and nature of merchandise being stored and shipped from the location. That’s expected to be released for Sioux Falls at some point.
“It’s a big building,” said Jeff Eckhoff, the city’s director of planning and development services, during an appearance at Sioux Falls Downtown Rotary today that included an economic development update.
“You can’t miss it.”
The city does not have a lot of numbers about exactly all the functions or the job creation around that,” Eckhoff said. “We hope there will be some type of announcement coming up.”
Most Amazon fulfillment centers of this size employ at least 1,000 people. The building plan submitted to the city includes 1,270 parking spaces. Most such centers operate 24 hours a day.
Amazon.com Services Inc. bought the property in northwest Sioux Falls for $7 million from the Sioux Falls Development Foundation in October. At the time, a spokesperson said it “provides us with the flexibility to quickly respond to our future network needs, and we look forward to becoming a member of the South Dakota community in the future.”
The city is increasingly hearing from large companies that want large sites like this, Eckhoff said.
“It’s becoming a very important part of the economic development infrastructure,” he said.
His office also has seen building permits for housing in northwest Sioux Falls, especially apartments, that likely would not have started this year without Amazon.
“That’s really been another part … of our building permit statistics. It really pumped up those numbers.”
Assuming the full permit is issued for Amazon in 2020, it would push the city into record territory for the year, he said.
