Amazon’s purchase of a warehouse outside Boston has some thinking Prime Now could be on the way for the City on a Hill.
Manhattanites and Seattleites have been enjoying Amazon’s Prime Now service for months, but it looks like it’s time for another city to get in on the fun.
BetaBoston reported that Amazon recently purchased the lease for a 96,600-square-foot warehouse in Everett, a suburb 20 minutes north of Boston. Phil Burgess, president of Burgess Properties, the company that handled the sale for the former tenants, said that Amazon was primarily interested in the warehouse for its proximity to Boston and its many suburbs. Curiously, the warehouse is located in a commercial park that several food and grocery distributors already call home.
“Location, location, location is the old adage in real estate,” Burgess said. “That was never more apropos than now.”
Burgess also explained that Amazon plans on refitting the warehouse with 20,000- to 30,000-square feet of freezer equipment, and BetaBoston found that the company recently posted job openings for Everett-based positions, including senior produce specialists, warehouse workers and IT support specialists.
Amazon’s revolutionary one- or two-hour delivery service launched in New York in 2014. Through 2015, Prime Now has spread to Seattle, Baltimore, Dallas, Miami and Atlanta, and the new warehouse outside Boston is the clearest indication that Amazon intends to keep adding new service areas across the country.
Though Amazon declined to comment on the purchase of the warehouse, RJ Hottovy, an analyst at Morningstar, told TheStreet that expanding Prime Now service into New England fits with Amazon’s aggressive growth plan of delivering traditional products and alongside new offerings like food and alcohol.
“If you drive enough Prime memberships and keep margins up, then it’s something you continue and expand in other markets and it makes sense,” Hottovy said.
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