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Amazon says new Kent warehouse will speed local deliveries

By Graham Johnson
By Graham Johnson
Seattle-based Amazon is making moves to get orders quicker to customers who live here.
On Tuesday, workers put up the first of 160 wall panels for a massive new building in Kent.
The company calls the 800,000 square foot warehouse a "fulfillment center" and plans to stock it with stuff for millions of orders.
In Washington, it will join similar facilities in Bellevue, Sumner and DuPont.
It's going up next to another new facility where boxes are sorted for quick shipment.
The company says the centers will help with seven day per week delivery, and allow the rollout of "Get it Today" service in the Seattle area, where orders placed by 12:45 p.m. arrive by 9 p.m.

KENT, Wash. — "It requires inventory close to the customers and this is the infrastructure for that," said Dave Graybeal of Amazon.

Amazon said the new warehouse will employ hundreds of people, but won't say precisely how many.
At the construction site, Graybeal said wages at the Kent facility will start at $12.25 an hour.       
An Amazon spokeswoman later wrote to say that wages vary at the company's fulfillment centers depending on position and tenure.

KIRO

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