Amazon’s mammoth new fulfillment center is now open and operational, the company announced late last week. 

“We’re very excited that PVD2 (the company’s name for the Johnston location) is now delivering for customers in Rhode Island and beyond – and just in time for the holiday season, too,” spokesman Mike Murphy said in a press release. “And we’re grateful for the support of policymakers in Johnston and at the state that helped us reach today.”

The 3.8-million-square-foot building sits on a hilltop site at 2120 Hartford Ave.  Construction began in 2021, and its opening means that the center will be buzzing with human and robotic activity as the e-commerce giant uses state-of-the-art technology to fill online orders and meet customer demand.

Murphy noted that operations at the new facility will continue to steadily “ramp up” into the new year. “Additional capacity will come online in phases, and recruiting and hiring continues as we work toward reaching full output,” he said.

At capacity, the new facility will employ about 1,500 people. A job fair at the site earlier this month drew hundreds of applicants.

"We are thrilled to welcome Amazon to Johnston,” Mayor Joseph Polisena Jr. said as the opening was announced.

“This new fulfillment center brings jobs, economic growth and exciting opportunities for our community. We look forward to a strong partnership that benefits our residents and showcases Johnston as a hub for innovation and progress. We are committed to supporting Amazon’s integration into our town and ensuring a strong partnership for years to come."

The enormous building – so big that the best way to photograph it is from a drone or a plane – is huge by Rhode Island standards and on the larger side even for Amazon.  According to news reports and industry publications, the company has other fulfillment centers of similar size and also recently celebrated the opening of a 4.5-million-square-foot facility in Ontario, California.

In announcing the Johnston opening, Murphy noted that another new fulfillment center located about an hour away in Charlton, Massachusetts, also just recently became operational. That facility is 2.8 million square feet, he said.

Over the summer, Amazon gave Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee and the media a tour of the Johnston facility, which was already busy with humans and robots practicing the workflow of expeditiously filling orders.

At the time, Jonathan Greeley, Amazon’s economic development manager for New England, provided some “fun facts” to put the size of the building in perspective for the public. It is the equivalent of about 66 football fields, he said, and building it required 70,000 cubic yards of concrete – 8,000 more than it took to build the Empire State Building.

During the tour, visitors could see little blue robots (which looked somewhat like robotic vacuums) gliding across the warehouse floors under the watchful eyes of humans. Now that the site is operational, the robots will be fetching items and ferrying them to a labyrinth of conveyor belts where products are further sorted and prepared for shipping.

During the summer tour, Greeley said this seemingly endless mechanized ballet of fulfillment is triggered whenever a customer presses the “Buy Now” button on the Amazon website. “Stuff starts moving in this building and will make its way to your front door through various means (like the Amazon delivery network or third party carriers),” he said. “Everything in this building is what you call sortable,” he added, giving examples of items such as electronics, housewares and toys.

Murphy said the company hopes to celebrate the opening of the Johnston site with a ribbon-cutting ceremony sometime in early 2025.