An Amazon employee moves product to be boxed May 3 at the Amazon fulfillment center in East Aurora. The center has over 1,000 full time employees and pulls, packs and ships product every day.Photo by Philip B. Poston/The Sentinel 
Amazon fulfillment center general manager Joe Dudek, center, and Aurora Rep. Mike Coffman watch packages as they move along the conveyer belt to be shipped to customers, May 3 at the Amazon fulfillment center in East Aurora. Photo by Philip B. Poston/The Sentinel 
A package moves along a conveyer belt, May 3 at the Amazon fulfillment center in East Aurora. The center opened in September of 2017 and employs over 1,000 fulltime people at the warehouse that is more than one million square feet. Photo by Philip B. Poston/The Sentinel 
An Amazon fulfillment center associate grabs a scanner gun to scan items before they are boxed up to be shipped, May 3 at the Amazon fulfillment center in East Aurora. The fulfillment center employs over 1,000 fulltime people. Photo by Philip B. Poston/The Sentinel 
An Amazon fulfillment center associate grabs a box to pack an item for shipment, May 3 at the Amazon fulfillment center in East Aurora. Employing over 1,000 staff members, employees pick pack and ship orders everyday. Photo by Philip B. Poston/The Sentinel 
Boxes ride along the conveyer belt before receiving their designated shipping labels before being shipped from the Amazon fulfillment center, May 3 in East Aurora. Photo by Philip B. Poston/The Sentinel 
Boxes ride along the conveyer belt receiving their designated shipping labels before being shipped from the Amazon fulfillment center, May 3 in East Aurora. Photo by Philip B. Poston/The Sentinel 
Boxes full of miscellaneous product goes from the floor to the ceiling in the Amazon fulfillment center, which is over one million square feet in size. Photo by Philip B. Poston/The Sentinel 
Forklifts follow a track as they make their way through the one million square foot Amazon fulfillment center. They follow along magnetic tracks in certain areas of the facility, when maneuvering through the slim aisles which contain product offered on the website. Photo by Philip B. Poston/The Sentinel
AURORA | As an Amazon worker swiftly stuffs boxes, Joe Dudek explained to a bevy of local officials how the packages will zoom along a conveyor belt before workers load them on a truck and send them on their way.
“And that’s it,” the general manager of Amazon’s massive Aurora fulfillment center said as the worker loaded dog food, computer monitors, flood lights and AC Delco shock absorbers into boxes.
The massive 1-million-square-foot facility near Interstate 70 and the E-470 toll road opened last fall and now has more than 1,000 employees. Wednesday morning, company officials gave a tour of the facility to local elected officials and the press.
Dudek said the center has filled most of its open positions, but they are always adding staff based on how busy they get.
Across Amazon’s two Aurora facilities — they also have a sortation facility a few miles to the west — the company has more than 1,200 employees in the city.
Aurora City Council last year unanimously approved a resolution granting up to $1.18 million in tax breaks for Amazon to build the fulfillment center. According to the city, the new Amazon facility will generate about $130 million in investments and the thousand or so employees who work at the site will receive an average salary of about $30,000, plus benefits.
The Amazon center is expected to generate about $6.5 million in taxes in the coming decade. Without the $1.1 million rebate, the city will still receive about $5.4 million in taxes from the company.
Local officials praised the Amazon center last year when news of its coming to Aurora broke. They said it is a sign that big-name companies are looking at Aurora when they need distribution and warehouse space.
On Wednesday, they hinted that they are hoping for even bigger things from Amazon, namely that the e-commerce giant might choose Aurora for their second headquarters — a campus dozens of cities across the country are clamoring for.
“I can only hope this is just the beginning of the Aurora-Amazon story,” Rep. Mike Coffman said in a brief speech before a tour of the shipping floor.
As he walked under a huge conveyor belt that snaked over the shipping floor, the Aurora congressman said that he thinks Aurora has a good shot at landing the facility, in part because the city has ample developable land.
Sen. Michael Bennet seemed to hint that regardless of where “HQ2” lands, he thinks Colorado has the right business climate to lure huge projects like it.
“In Colorado, we have long seen past the idea that we are in competition with each other,” said the Denver Democrat, who left without taking reporters’ questions.
The fulfillment center is Amazon’s first in Colorado but won’t be its only one. A new center in Thornton is expected to start hiring this summer and open in late summer or early fall.