Amazon fulfilment centre in Balzac nearing completion
A harsh winter made tough work for construction crews building Amazon’s fulfilment centre just north of Calgary’s city limits.
But facility manager Jas Khangra said the massive project underway in Balzac’s Nose Creek Business Park is on track to serve as a hub for online shoppers, while employing “more than 1,000” Albertans on Day 1 of operations.
“We will have inventory in the facility to meet customer orders and, as the customers place orders from the website ... we will pick, we will pack and we will ship the orders to fill the customer promise,” he said.
On Tuesday, politicians, stakeholders and members of the media were given a guided tour of the more-than-600,000-square-foot facility that will serve as a distribution hub for Amazon orders placed in southern Alberta and beyond.
With more than five kilometres of conveyor belts and enough concrete to build four Olympic swimming pools, the facility uses smart systems and innovative technologies to track and fill customer orders. Steve McElweenie, vice-president at Honeywell Intelligrated Canada, said the facility’s state-of-the-art sorting system will help Amazon employees fill orders and ensure packages reach customers on time.
“Think of it as a continuous train,” he said of the massive conveyor system. “You induct packages onto it and it goes in a continuous loop, and there’s various discharges around the sorter itself.”
Not every item Amazon carries will be stored at the Balzac facility, and Khangra said the new centre is just one part of the network that fills customer orders, including fulfilment centres in Brampton, Ont., and New Westminster, B.C.
Calgary Coun. George Chahal said he’s hopeful the project will signal to other innovative companies that the city is open for business, adding the project has also helped drive the Calgary economy by using local companies, such as Delphi Electric, in the construction process.
To mark the tour and show support for local communities, Amazon and project partner QuadReal Property Group gave a $10,000 donation to Brown Bagging for Calgary’s Kids.