This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
AT the size of 11 MCGs, Amazon’s new robotics fulfilment centre in northern Melbourne will be the largest logistics facility ever built in Australia, and house up to 25 million items sold on the retail behemoth’s platform.
Excavation works have started at the Craigieburn Logistics Estate, in Craigieburn, which is owned by AustralianSuper and being managed and developed by Logos. Completion of the centre is targeted for 2025.
The fulfilment centre will span around 209,000 sqm across four levels – equivalent to 11 MCGs, or five times the size of Federation Square. It will beat Amazon’s western Sydney robotics site by 9,000 sqm for the title of Australia’s largest warehouse. The Kemps Creek facility was launched last year and doubled the company’s operational footprint.
Amazon says the Craigieburn facility will create around 2,000 local jobs once fully operational, and that robots will work “collaboratively with employees by moving ‘pods’ of inventory to them, reducing the time and effort that would otherwise be required for the employee to stow items for sale or pick them for new customer orders”.
Amazon is betting on Australians to keep spending on its platform, despite official data pointing to a spending slowdown. Amazon has invested more than $8.4 billion across all of its businesses in Australia since 2011, and now has a local team of more than 7,000 employees.
Amazon Australia’s country manager, Janet Menzies, said “The site will also help connect Victorian customers to local small and medium-sized businesses, enhancing delivery outcomes and selection for customers in the state.”
“We chose Melbourne as the home of our first fulfilment centre when we launched in Australia in 2017, and the introduction of this state-of-the-art robotics fulfilment centre in the city’s north continues our commitment here.”
Amazon’s first Australian fulfilment centre was a 24,000 sqm warehouse in Melbourne’s Dandenong South, where it renewed its lease last year. Last year it announced that first dedicated Australian sorting centre would open in Craigieburn – able to sort 300,000 parcels a day – with a 15,600 sqm centre built in Goodman’s Amaroo Business Park, Goodman has also delivered Amazon a fulfilment centre in Brisbane.
The newly-announced Craigieburn centre will be Amazon’s sixth operations site in Melbourne; it has another fulfilment centre in Ravenhall and two logistics sites. In addition, it will be an anchor tenant of Charter Hall’s $1.5 billion 555 Collins Street office development in the Melbourne CBD.
The Mayor of Hume City, Councillor, Joseph Haweil, said, “Hume City Council is proud to be advocating for an innovative industry that will support our economy and job security for locals long into the future.
“The size and scale of this project is unparalleled in Hume City, as are its economic benefits to our locals. Not only will the Amazon robotics fulfilment centre create thousands of jobs and ongoing opportunities for local businesses to expand their services nationwide, the cutting-edge technology used at the site will ensure our community reaps these economic benefits for years to come.”
AustralianSuper’s Jason Peasley, head of mid risk portfolios, said the development will boost Australia’s logistics infrastructure and “play a key role in opening up economic opportunities in this fast-growing area of Melbourne, providing jobs and generating long-term returns for AustralianSuper members.”
Logos head of Australia and New Zealand, Darren Searle, said, “We are proud to partner with Amazon and AustralianSuper to bring to life this specialised, high-tech logistics facility which endorses the local and state government’s investments in infrastructure in the north of Melbourne”.
The lease for the centre was facilitated by CBRE’s industrial & logistics occupier business.
Amazon.com.au launched in Australia in December of 2017 and now offers customers more than 200 million products across 31 categories.
