Amazon’s St. Cloud Delivery Center Plans to Ramp Up Capacity

(KNSI) – Amazon’s delivery center in St. Cloud opened last month and has big plans to service customers in Central Minnesota. Amazon says delivery centers are the last stop before packages go to customers’ homes. Amazon officials say the work is done in two stages at a delivery center. The first is sorting items and then staging them for delivery. The second stage is dispatching the packages for delivery.

The photo was taken by Jake Judd (KNSI News)

All the items come prewrapped from a fulfillment center. Many of the packages delivered from the St. Cloud station come from fulfillment centers in

Maple Grove and Brooklyn Park. Amazon Site Manager Nick says opening the St. Cloud facility is part of the company’s larger goal of handling packages from order to the customers’ front door.

“Prior to a couple of years ago, we didn’t really have a solution for the rural areas that aren’t as close to airports or as close to some of the largest cities. And so, we’ve been expanding, and rather than using external partners, we’re handling that (delivery) ourselves, and this is one step towards that goal.”

Photo by Jake Judd (KNSI News)

Facilities like St. Cloud’s make the company less dependent on other companies like FedEx, UPS, or the post office. He says the facility has a primary delivery area bordering St. Cloud, Rice, Cold Spring, and

Albany with plans to expand. Lahti says they’re currently operating at 25% capacity.

“There’s a whole ramp plan, and I can say every week we’re increasing by about 500 to 1,000 packages a week and ramping from there. So, it’ll not take too long. We should be fully ramped by this time next year

Photo by Jake Judd (KNSI News)

for sure.”

The company reports it’s delivering around 3,000 packages a day with plans to deliver 12,000 or more parcels a day by the end of 2022. The delivery center started with ten delivery service drivers and uses 48 today. Amazon contracts with a third-party company, Quality Express Incorporated, to deliver most of its packages. Amazon also utilizes “flex” drivers, described as “Uber” for package delivery.

In the last year, Amazon has opened 250 facilities across the country, including 100 in September. The Amazon Delivery Station in St. Cloud opened on November 18th.

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