Amazon to build two fulfillment centers in California

Amazon.com Inc. plans to open two new fulfillment centers in California over the next year, a move in response to an online sales tax deal between the online retailer and the state of California.

The move comes after California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law in September requiring large online retailers to begin collecting sales tax from state residents next year. Amazon won a postponement of the sales-tax collection requirement until next year after promising to build warehouses in the state, which will create at least 10,000 new full-time jobs and 25,000 seasonal jobs by the end of 2015.

As early as this fall, Amazon plans to take over a 950,000 square-foot facility in San Bernardino, in Southern California. Additionally, Amazon plans to open a 1-milion-square-foot fulfillment center in Patterson, just east of the San Francisco Bay area. That facility should open in the second quarter of 2013.

By the end of the second quarter of 2012 Amazon will create “hundreds of full time jobs with benefits” in Patterson, California, said Dave Clark, Amazon vice president, global customer fulfillment.

We appreciate USAA Real Estate Company’s hard work, the support from Governor Brown and state and local officials, and we look forward to creating hundreds of full time jobs with benefits in Patterson when the facility begins shipping to customers in 2013.

The two new fulfillment centers apparently represent only the initial warehouse moves by Amazon in California, coming as they do on the heels of a 34% sales increase in the first quarter for the online retail giant.