Amazon’s Largest Warehouse Ever Under Construction in Southern California

The largest Amazon warehouse ever—a 4.1 million-square-foot, 97-foot-tall building planned for dairy lands in Ontario, California—is under construction, according to an article by Jeff Collins for the Orange County Register [paywall].

When complete, the new warehouse “will have more space than any other Amazon warehouse not just in America, but in the world,” reports Collins.

“That’s the biggest (Amazon warehouse) we see in our database,” says Marc Wulfraat, president of Canadian-based logistics consulting firm MWPVL International in the article.

“Amazon signed a lease for the building last summer, and construction began soon after. A spokesperson for the builder, Prologis, said construction should be done by the end of the year, clearing the way for a new distribution and automation center to begin operations,” adds Collins.

As explained by Collins, however, the momentum for Amazon’s warehouse development spree is lagging and the Ontario warehouse could be the last of its kind until something changes,. “An e-commerce boom that exploded during the pandemic slowed over the past year as people resumed shopping in stores, leaving Amazon with a $3.8 billion loss at the start of 2022, its first quarterly loss in seven years.” The losses have led to some belt-tightening at Amazon, and one source cited in the article expects the company is expected to sublease its existing warehouses to offset the capacity generated by the new warehouse.