- Amazon is leasing a large warehouse space in the South Bronx that, until recently, had been occupied by its one-time rival Jet.com.
- The deal is the latest large space Amazon has added in or around the city in recent years as it sought to built a huge logistics network to serve one of its chief e-commerce markets.
- The lease also highlights the continued demand in the industrial real-estate market, which has remained healthier relative to other property types, such as retail, hotels, and office spaces.
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Amazon has leased the Bronx warehouse that was the scene of its chief rival’s failed push into New York City’s ultra-competitive online grocery market last year.
The company signed a deal to take all of 1055 Bronx River Avenue, a 200,000-square-foot space along the Bruckner Expressway in the South Bronx.
“We are excited to continue our investment in the state of New York with a new delivery station and create hundreds of job opportunities for the talented local workforce,” Shone Jemmott, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in a statement.
The lowrise industrial building had previously been leased by Jet.com, before the Walmart-owned company shuttered its operations in the space late last year after abandoning its effort to break into the fresh-food grocery delivery business in the city, where it faced a field of competitors, including Amazon, Fresh Direct, and Peapod.
Last week, Walmart scuttled the Jet.com brand altogether, stating that the company, which Walmart purchased for $3.3 billion four years ago, had served its purpose in augmenting its online sales. Since the Walmart acquisition, Jet had seen many of its top executives exit.
The space is the latest addition to the network of last mile and distribution facilities that Amazon has been amassing in and around the city for its e-commerce grocery and consumer goods businesses.
The $1.2 trillion tech giant recently reported that its e-commerce operations experienced a “major surge” beginning in March as more shoppers migrated online while lockdowns were imposed across the country to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
The deal also highlights the continued demand in the nation’s industrial real-estate market, especially for spaces close to population centers.
“There was about 80 million square feet of demand that we were tracking around the country for industrial space before the pandemic hit,” said Robert Kossar, a vice chairman at JLL who heads the brokerage and real estate services company’s industrial real estate practice in the Northeast region.
“Much of that is back and we have seen a picture of strength in the market driven by demand from large users.”
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Read more:
- A surge in grocery deliveries is creating a huge opportunity for industrial real-estate developers. Here’s how the coronavirus is transforming retail and warehousing.
- Bond, which has raised $15 million from investors including Lightspeed, wants to become the Shopify of logistics by turning vacant retail space into warehouses
- There’s more than $10 billion waiting to pounce on the struggling real-estate sector. Distressed debt tied to a trendy Brooklyn hotel could be one of the first hospitality opportunities.
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