The world’s biggest online retailer, Amazon, is opening a warehouse in Caribou to speed up delivery times in northern Maine, a company spokesperson confirmed to the Bangor Daily News Wednesday.
“We’re close to completing construction work on a small delivery station that will support faster delivery and better service to customers in Caribou and across northeastern Maine,” Amazon spokesperson Amber Plunkett said. “We’ll share more once operations have started.”
The warehouse, located at 33 Aldrich Drive, may be Amazon’s first facility in Maine. No others have been publicly announced in the state or are listed on third party directories of the company’s facilities. The company didn’t immediately respond to a request for confirmation of that.
It’s a part of the company’s $4 billion rural expansion effort announced in April that it says will grow its footprint to more than 200 delivery stations throughout rural America and create over 100,000 new jobs. It’s unclear how many people the Caribou delivery station will employ.
“At a time where many logistics providers are backing away from serving rural customers because of cost to serve, we are stepping up our investment to make their lives easier and better,” Amazon Senior Vice President of Worldwide Operations Udit Madan said in that announcement.
Caribou City Manager Penny Thompson said the city has for months worked confidentially with consulting company Maine & Co. and a local developer to “satisfy [Amazon’s] site and employment needs.”
“The City of Caribou is a great fit for this company, and we are pleased to welcome them into our community,” Thompson said Wednesday. “With the company’s expansive growth, it searched for a location in northern Maine to bring its services closer to this growing market. We have an eager and educated workforce, and this employer will provide good paying jobs and benefits as an employer in the community.”
Amazon delivery stations are the backbone of the company’s “last mile network,” the final step before packages are delivered. They serve as locations where packages are sorted, routed and prepared for delivery. Without an existing delivery station, the company currently outsources last-mile service in northern Maine to carriers such as UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service.
In 2023, 11.8 percent of UPS revenue came from delivering for Amazon, a figure that has been steadily declining in recent years as the company expands its rural network, according to CapitalOne Shopping research.
Plunkett did not offer specifics on when the warehouse will open.
