New Amazon facility in Tijuana-Mexico opens amid praise and controversy
Source：San Diego Union Tribune
From：Taiwan Trade Center, Mexico City
Update Time：2021/10/06
The photos quickly went viral. A new 344,000-square-foot Amazon fulfillment center in Tijuana amid a settlement, where many houses are built with wood scraps, tarps, and cardboard.
Amazon is scheduled to start operations Tijuana in what will be its eleventh distribution center in Mexico on September 22, said Arlene Herrera, spokeswoman for Amazon Mexico. At least 250 jobs will be created at this facility, she added.
The facility is located in the Real Estate Management and Services Group (RMSG) industrial park, next to the vía rápida (expressway) Alamar.
An average of 21 million dollars was invested in the construction of this facility, according to city officials. Herrera, could not confirm that figure, citing confidentiality matters.
Tijuana Mayor, Karla Ruiz, whose term ends in three weeks, is confident that the arrival of this company will trigger development in the surrounding area. “If you change an environment, it transforms the surrounding area”, she said.
Residents of the Nueva Esperanza neighborhood hope that those changes will bring benefits to the area.
Pedro Arana has lived in this neighborhood for over 35 years. His house is right across the new facility, on an unpaved street, where you can clearly see the big Amazon logo.
“There’s a lot of poor families here, where we live there are not many resources to build and there are many people who come from out of state,” described Arana, who sells cheese for a living.
He admits that like many of his neighbors, he had no idea what Amazon was.
On the one hand, he hopes that the arrival of the company will help improve the conditions for the residents around the area, but in the other hand, he fears that they could be forced to relocate.
Although no authority has notified them that would be the case, it is a concern that has been discussed among neighbors, said María Mendoza, who has lived in the area for over 30 years. “We are here because we need a place to live,” she said. “We just don’t want this to work against us,” she added.
Secretary of Economic Development in Tijuana, Gabriel Camarena said no one would be displaced. “Either there is a complete transformation, or they will be offered other and more dignified living options,” he said.
Amazon is not the only company set up in the area. There are at least five other industrial facilities nearby, including one bigger (538,000 square-foot) than Amazon, Camarena said.
Tijuana president of the Business Coordinating Council (CCE), Francisco Rubio, agreed that “it is always positive that first-world companies continue to set up in our city”.
General Director of Operations in Amazon Mexico, Diego Méndez said in a late June press release that “at Amazon Mexico, we feel a great responsibility towards the communities where we operate, and we are pleased to be able to offer hundreds of job opportunities in Tijuana”.
The new distribution center aims to offer same-day deliveries in Tijuana, and next-day deliveries to cities like Mexicali, Tecate, Ensenada and Rosarito.
Source: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/border-baja-california/story/2021-09-13/new-amazon-facility-in-tijuana-between-praises-and-controversy