Amazon opening ‘last-mile’ hub

Amazon is preparing to open its third distribution center in Kern County — a “last-mile” hub at the former Kmart shopping center on Wilson Road — after a two-year delay that was part of a nationwide development pullback preceded by lagging sales.

The e-commerce giant said by email it expects this summer to begin operating the $20 million, 128,000-square-foot center planned to receive six truckloads of consumer goods per day, then sort and home-deliver it all with about 20 vans.

It is much smaller than Amazon’s centers in Oildale and Shafter. Two hundred employees are expected to work at the center.

When the project was announced in April 2021, city officials called it a boost to the local economy and a sign of Bakersfield’s

business-friendly approach to business.

By July 2022, work stopped on the property just west of Highway 99, even as the company never requested a city inspection that could lead to a certificate of occupancy. Amazon declined at the time to address the delay.

In August 2022, a report was released stating the company had canceled, delayed or closed 49 lastmile processing centers around the country.

MWPVL International counted a total of 50.2 million square feet of warehouse space. It said the Bakersfield center had been put on hold, while five delivery processing facilities in California were canceled, and two others were subleased.

The report arrived about four months after Amazon reported earnings showing the company had suffered its slowest sales growth in about two decades.