Yuma will soon be the home of an Amazon facility at 36th Street and South Avenue 4E, as confirmed by Bobby Wuertz of Land Advisors, who brokered the sale of the 17 acres of former farmland.
“(Amazon) liked the story of Yuma,” Wuertz said about why Amazon entered the picture. “Yuma is so close to transportation. We got Interstate 8 right there. There’s a trained workforce and availability of land.”
At the end of the day, he said, Amazon recognized Yuma’s “business friendly climate.”
Amazon’s future Yuma location will serve as “a last-mile facility.” Completion of the project is expected to be by the end of 2025, he said.
“So a lot of small, like vans and trucks will be delivering either directly to homes in the area or to other local warehouses,” he said. “But it’s not a major distribution hub where you have big trucks in and out all the time. Big trucks will arrive and then smaller trucks will leave.”
The Yuma Sun reached out to Amazon multiple times, but the company could not provide more information at this time.
Asked about the Amazon project, Mayor Doug Nicholls’ office said that more information would be released during his State of the City on Tuesday, April 8.
“I was working with landowners and brought in Panattoni (Development), they’re an industrial developer,” he said. “We brought in Amazon and…Garycor is our general contractor.”
Panattoni previously announced plans to build an industrial park with more than a million square feet of space at 36th Street and South Avenue 4E. The developer noted an opportunity for U.S. and international companies to use Yuma as a distribution point for both the U.S. and Mexico markets.
Yuma, with its location along the borders of Arizona, California and Mexico, is 25 minutes from the San Luis Port of Entry to Mexico and a 3.5-hour drive to Tijuana involving travel limited to Arizona and Mexico roads.
Additionally, Yuma is located within a four-hour drive of the Inland Empire for businesses looking for the available rent “relief” and labor associated with southwest Arizona. The Inland Empire refers to the region east of Los Angeles County in Southern California, including the urban and metropolitan area centered around the cities of Riverside and San Bernardino.
