The e-commerce giant Amazon has bought an approximately 50-acre piece of land in the Roanoke Centre for Industry and Technology from the Oregon-based brewery Deschutes, the city of Roanoke announced Friday.
Amazon plans to build a 125,000-square-foot “last mile” distribution center there to handle customer orders.
Specific terms of the deal were not included in a news release from the city Friday announcing the deal. Marc Nelson, Roanoke’s director of economic development, said in an email that the deal closed Jan. 3 but Amazon and Deschutes had not disclosed the sale price to city officials.
“The City is the ideal location for an Amazon last-mile facility due to its proximity to the interstate, infrastructure and available workforce,” Nelson said in the news release. “We are grateful for Amazon’s investment in Roanoke because it strengthens our ongoing economic development efforts.”
The city said launch plans for the facility are in the early stages, construction is scheduled to start in the coming weeks, and Amazon will provide more details on the facility’s opening and hiring as plans are finalized.
An Amazon spokesperson declined to provide details Friday on the real estate deal, the company’s hiring timeline or how many jobs the new distribution center would bring.
“We’re grateful for the partnership of the City of Roanoke and the Roanoke Regional Partnership, and look forward to sharing more details in the future,” Amazon spokesperson Ian Allen-Anderson said in a statement to Cardinal News.
Amazon will join other businesses in the 440-acre industrial park, including Advance Auto Parts, Elizabeth Arden, FedEx Ground and Orvis.
“The Roanoke Region is benefitting from a diversity of investment opportunities including those from internationally recognized companies like Amazon,” John Hull, executive director of the Roanoke Regional Partnership, a regional economic development organization, said in the news release. “I look forward to the growth of Amazon and the economic vitality it will contribute to our region.”
Seattle-based Amazon and Bend, Oregon-based Deschutes have been negotiating the real estate sale since the first quarter of 2023, according to city documents.
Deschutes bought the land at 2002 Blue Hills Dr. NE in 2018 for $3.2 million with plans to build a large East Coast facility there, but the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors brought those plans to a halt.
That land purchase came after Deschutes opened a tasting room in downtown Roanoke in 2017. The brewing facility plan was put on hold in 2019, and Deschutes announced in 2021 that it would close the downtown tasting room at the end of that year, citing the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Olde Salem Brewing Company then occupied that location at 315 Market St. Southeast.
When Deschutes was still planning to build in the industrial park, the city of Roanoke entered into an agreement with the U.S. Economic Development Administration for the federal agency to pay half the cost of a $3 million project to extend Blue Hills Drive Northeast in the industrial park.
That agreement restricted the property to manufacturing use. Last month, the Roanoke City Council signed off on a plan for the EDA to be repaid from the proceeds of the sale, removing that restriction.
Specifically, the council voted unanimously to amend the language of the property’s deed accordingly and to allow city officials to establish an escrow account for transferring money from the property sale to the EDA.
Under that plan, no public money would be used to repay the EDA because Amazon and Deschutes incorporated the cost of the repayment into their negotiations, Nelson told the council at its Dec. 4 meeting.
