“Something big”: Redding celebrates groundbreaking of Amazon Delivery Site

By 10 a.m., the sun was already high in the sky as beads of sweat formed on the brows of those in attendance at a groundbreaking ceremony on August 13. The crowd was a who’s-who of elected officials: Redding Council members Erin Resner and Tenessa Audette, Mayor Jack Munns, County Supervisor Chris Kelstrom, and even State Assemblywoman Heather Hadwick. 

The tone of their remarks, just before they posed for a photo op with hard hats and shovels, was momentous. Amazon is coming to town.

“Redding is on the minds of a lot of folks, and we’re so thankful that it has been top of mind for Amazon,” said President and CEO of the Shasta Economic Development Corporation Rebecca Baer, as she opened up the floor to Mayor Munns, Assemblywomen Hadwick, and representatives from both Amazon and their contractor Pannatoni to discuss how the new facility will benefit the community. 

All who spoke were hopeful that Amazon’s presence will essentially put Redding on the map as a place where big businesses can confidently invest. Assemblywoman Hadwick pointed out that for people like herself, who live in the far reaches of California’s rural counties, driving into town for essentials can be an all day endeavor. While it’s important to prioritize local businesses in economic development, she said, for her, Amazon is a necessary resource. 

“I had told my husband last week I was going to come here and speak, and he asked if it was because I’m their best customer. I proudly use Amazon quite frequently,” Hadwick joked. 

Those who spoke had less to say about what the working conditions will be like for the locals Amazon will employ. The company has a history of federal investigations and lawsuits, and has been the subject of news reports that revealed unsafe and even degrading labor conditions for workers in a variety of positions. 

What we know about the facility 

The city’s decision to sell the $2.5 million parcel of land to Amazon, where they will build a new 95,000 square foot facility, was approved unanimously by the Redding City Council as a part of the consent calendar during a public meeting on May 20. The warehouse will be an Amazon Delivery Station. It will be located at the Stillwater Business Park, which comprises tracts of city-owned land ready to sell to industrial sites or offices. Of the 16 parcels available, eight have been sold, including the contract with Amazon, which will be located at 5855 Venture Parkway in Redding. 

Within the freight infrastructure of Amazon’s delivery system, the Redding warehouse will be what is known as a “last mile” facility. At this step, large shipments of products are sorted into individual orders to be dispatched to customers. A similar last-mile facility already exists in Orland. Amazon’s website indicates that “as with the final leg of any race, a lot is at stake this close to the finish line!” 

From the city side of things, Mayor Munns said Amazon’s arrival feels like the culmination of a vision that led city officials to develop the Stillwater site in 2008, saying “it’s fair to say that we’ve all been waiting for something like this, something big.” 

According to a report on Stillwater by the Shasta County Grand Jury in 2016 “the true value of the project would be measured not by real estate sales revenues, but by future economic development connected to industry at the site.” 

It’s something that’s taken decades to begin to bring to fruition. 

What can local applicants expect? 

According to Amazon’s Senior Regional Manager of Delivery Stations, Vlad Ivanov, the new facility will be complete in 12 to 16 months. They plan to hire about 100 employees in “flex associate,” positions he said, who will receive and sort packages. They’re also recruiting over 100 delivery drivers and an additional 80 to 120 “flex drivers.”

The flex designation refers to the structure around which employees can choose their shifts. Rather than being given a consistent schedule, he said, workers will use an app to choose when they want to pick up a shift – up to a certain number of hours in an arrangement somewhat comparable to Uber. 

“We post the shifts a week or two weeks out. In some cases, we may go up to four weeks out, and you have the ability to pick shifts on your own accord and based on your own schedule,” Ivanov elaborated. “We do not obligate ourselves to the specific amount of hours, because then you get into, like, a part time, full time situation.” 

Scott Seroka, a regional PR manager for Amazon, explained their reasoning behind the flex structure. “We’re kind of at the whim of the customer – how much the customer orders is how we have to flex our operations to meet those needs.” 

Ivanov was not able to provide specifics on what pay or benefits will be offered in Redding. But he added, “from experience, we’re very competitive, and from the rural stations that I’m operating, we are paying way above the regional wages.” A job description at the nearby Orland facility lists pay for a part time role as up to $16.50 per hour, California’s minimum wage.

Orland’s Senior Station Manager Christopher McGarhern, who also attended the event, said the new facility in Redding will be significantly bigger than the one he manages, which is located in a refurbished building rather than Redding’s planned new-build. The representatives from Amazon also said that the facility will make use of finger scanners and overhead scanners to scan barcodes and conveyors to move packages across the warehouse. 

Amazon has been accused of excessively surveilling its workers, and when asked if the technology in Redding’s building might be used to track or survey worker productivity, Ivanov said no, explaining that “the majority of automation we use is with safety in mind and improving the employee conditions.”

Working conditions at Amazon warehouses have been a cause for concern in recent years. A 2024 report by the NGO Oxfam found that roughly half of Amazon workers felt like they were being surveilled constantly. In 2023, the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois found that 41% of warehouse workers had been injured on the job and 69% had to take unpaid time off due to pain or exhaustion. Amazon has also been known to go to significant lengths to prevent workers from unionizing.

When asked about the criticism Amazon has faced, Ivanov said “we have very high expectations for our building. So the working conditions will be, I mean, the building will have HVAC, provide plenty of water, plenty of engagement activities for the associates… I know there’s a lot of negative publicity out there, but there’s also a lot of positive stuff that we are doing that probably doesn’t get the right amount of coverage.”

For her part, Shasta EDC Director Baer is confident that the deal “really validates the vision that the city has had for several years to have a big company like Amazon select Redding as a site.”

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