Amazon to build in Middletown, create 849 jobs

COMMENT: This is great news and congratulations are due to Economic Development director Alan Levin. Finally, subsidies are being used to create real jobs in Delaware. Not only that, Amazon is profitable and will bring far more to Delaware than we are giving them.

Now if we can just take the wasted subsidies reserved for impractical alternative energy and use that money to create real jobs in real businesses, maybe we could start to improve Delaware's competitive position with the other states in the union. Eventually, this could lead to genuine economic recovery.

The world’s largest online retailer, Amazon.com Inc. of Seattle, Wash., is pushing forward on a plan to open a fulfillment center that would employ 849 full-time workers in Middletown by next September.

Alan Levin, director of the Delaware Economic Development Office, confirmed Friday that Amazon has applied for state money to build a 1.25 million-square-foot building on 76 acres south of U.S. 301, across from the Walmart Supercenter.

Officials at Amazon did not return phone calls or emails seeking comment.

The development office has offered the company a total $3.47 million grant package from the Delaware Strategic Fund to support new job creation and the project’s capital expenditures.

In addition, Amazon -- with the Town of Middletown as its sponsor -- has applied for up to $4 million in grant money from the New Jobs Infrastructure Fund, Levin said.
That money would be used to build extensions to area public roads, improvetraffic flow and provide public access to surrounding properties for future economic development, said Nikki Lavoie, communications manager for DEDO.

The Middletown center would be more than five times larger than Amazon's operation in New Castle, which employs 350 people. Operations at that location will not be impact by the a Middletown facility, Levin said.

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