John D. Boyd | Aug 01, 2011 11:35AM EDT
Internet retailing giant Amazon.com plans to open three more regional distribution centers in Tennessee this year, part of a broader strategy to build warehousing and fulfillment facilities across the U.S.
The actions come as Amazon is fighting states trying to force online retailers to collect Internet sales, and reportedly cutting ties to their retailers or threatening to shut down facilities in states that try to tax that revenue stream.
Tennessee is one of the states that said Amazon would not have to collect the sales taxes. The first of its additional Tennessee sites will be a 500,000-square-foot center in Lebanon, east of Nashville along Interstate 40. That will be its third in that state and bring its total fulfillment center space to more than 2 million square feet.
And this fall, Amazon plans to open two more — one in Chattanooga in the state’s southeastern corner near I-24 and I-75, and the other 30 miles northeast at Cleveland on I-75. Each center creates hundreds of jobs, a mix of fulltime and seasonal employment.
That is just the latest in a fast-unfolding series of facility decisions. In July, Amazons said it would build a 1.2 million-square-foot center in Phoenix, Ariz., the latest of four fulfillment centers in Ariz. It also announced plans to build a fourth center in Indiana, a 900,000-square-foot site in Plainfield.
Earlier, it unveiled building plans this year for new facilities in other states, although the Internet sales tax collections issues has raised doubts about some previous construction projects.
Amazon last week said its second quarter sales surged 51 percent to $9.9 billion, although profit slid nearly 8 percent to $191 million. It projected revenue this quarter of $10.3 billion to $11.1 billion, up as much as $47 percent from the 2010 third quarter.
-- Contact John D. Boyd at jboyd@joc.com. Follow him on Twitter www.twitter.com/jboydjoc
