Amazon opens new Florence Delivery Station, to hire 150 to speed packages to consumers

By Andy Furman
NKyTribune reporter

Day 1.

Amazon Florence Delivery Station launched its operation, Wednesday at their new 125,000 square-foot delivery station, located at 7435 Industrial Road in Florence.

“We opened the operation, 1 a.m. Wednesday morning,” Bryan Dzialo, the Amazon Florence Delivery Station Site-Lead, told an assembled group at an official ribbon-cutting ceremony staged later the same morning.

The ceremony included welcoming speeches from Gary Moore, Boone County Judge Executive, Josh Hunt, City of Florence, Director of Administration, and Brent Cooper, Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, CEO.

“Amazon has invested $43 billion since 2010 in the Commonwealth,” Dzialo said, “including infrastructure and compensation to employees.”

The Florence project, he continued, has created more than 150 full-time jobs with benefits.

“And the rollout of our first-ever all-Electric Delivery Vehicle (EDV) is equipped with some 300 charging stations,” he said.

Those vehicles will process tens of thousands of packages daily, he said.

“In these buildings, customer orders are prepared for last-minute delivery to customers.”

The procedure is quite simple – packages arrive at the Florence Delivery Station from the Florence Air Hub by tractors, he explained. Those packages are scanned and then sorted on a grid by zip codes – and then placed on the Amazon EDV trucks for delivery in Northern Kentucky.

“The packages that are loaded last in the truck,” Dzialo said, “are delivered first.” In the Tri-state, there are but three delivery stations – River Road in Cincinnati, West Chester, and the newest in Florence.

As for the vehicles, they include a safety-first design focused on 360-degree visibility. They also include sensor detection, a large windshield to enhance driver visibility, automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, and collision warnings.

“For maximum delivery,” Dzialo said, “We’ll load up to 50 trucks every 15 minutes in the morning.”

What Amazon has done in Kentucky is somewhat mind-blowing. They’ve added $39 billion into the Commonwealth’s GDP thanks to investments and created 22,000 full and part-time jobs as well as 50,300 indirect jobs supported on top of direct hires.

Amazon’s main investments in Kentucky include:

• 11 Fulfillment and sortation centers
• 5 Delivery stations
• 1 Air Hub
• 2 Whole Foods Market locations
• 4 Solar Farms, and
• 1 on-Site solar location.

Talk about growth – try this.

“This Industrial Road site was home for Lit-Ning Products in 1970,” Josh Hunt, the City of Florence Director of Administration, told the Northern Kentucky Tribune . “After Lit-Ning,” he continued, “it was home to A-1 Pallet Manufacturing; and 50 years later the land was sold.

“Amazon has been a beacon of opportunity and growth as well as learning for our region. It’s been quite the transformation.”

Dzialo says he hopes to have the Florence Delivery Station ramped-up in about six-to-eight weeks with some 150 full-time employees.

“All wages,” he said, “start over $20 an-hour.”

Amazon has delivered more than 800 million packages to customers across the United States with Rivian electric vehicles, since July, he noted. “And tens of thousands of delivery associates have been trained to drive the custom vans.”

You’ve probably seen one of those trained drivers at your doorstep.

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