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With local and state government representatives on hand, Amazon held a ribbon-cutting ceremony and tour of its 1.2 million-square-foot warehouse on June 4.
The facility has been in operation since April 27 and was approved by the city in 2022 to be 1.05 million square feet.
Hollister Mayor Roxanne Stephens said the retailer had committed to provide a $250,000 donation to the city for “community development activities.”
Amazon was also recognized by representatives of 29th District Assemblyman Robert Rivas and 17th District Senator John Laird who said the company has shown its dedication to the community by providing scholarships for students, partnering with businesses and creating local jobs.
The event comes six months after Amazon notified Hollister that it would not be using the building as a fulfillment center, thus erasing between $1 million and $1.5 million in anticipated sales tax revenue to the city.
Half of the building is currently operational, employing about 500 people, according to Amazon representatives, which also said the company plans to use the rest of the building when it launches a night shift at the end of June, adding another 300 positions. Amazon has been criticized by several media organizations for worker injuries and the impact of robotics in the workplace.
The facility is equal in size to 17 professional football fields.
The warehouse serves as the first step in delivering goods throughout the nation, according to Amazon site leader Sivakumar Muthusubramanian, who said packages are delivered by trucks to the facility in the morning and are sorted and shipped by the end of the day to five locations including Stockton and Ontario in California; Memphis, Tennessee; and New Jersey and North Carolina.
“We don’t open many boxes,” Muthusubramanian said. “We just label and ship out.”
Amazon has been the subject of several investigative reports on employee work conditions, injuries and the use of robots. “Behind the Smiles” was a Pulitzer Prize nominee and came out in 2019.
Inside the massive building, Amazon has various stations including where employees can sign up for events, a digital communication board, and an end-of-shift stretching station.
Amazon employees at the Hollister warehouse facility. Photo by Noe Magaña. 
Hollister Mayor Roxanne Stephens announced a $250,000 commitment from Amazon to the city. Photo by Noe Magaña. 
Amazon employees unload a truck. Photo by Noe Magaña. 
Amazon employee places labels on incoming boxes before they enter a scanning machine. Photo by Noe Magaña. 
Amazon employees load boxes into a truck to be delivered to one of five destinations in the United States. Photo by Noe Magaña.
Conveyor belts connect the east and west sides of the building. Muthusubramanian said between 30 and 35 trucks deliver the goods daily. The same number of trucks ship the boxes out the same day.
He said the majority of goods are being brought from the Port of Oakland. Goods are also brought in from the Port of Los Angeles.
Amazon representatives did not have information about how many San Benito County residents work at their facility but said a majority are from the area.
Regarding its waste footprint, Amazon spokesman Scott Seroka said while he did not have data readily available, the company does not have a “significant” footprint.
Seroka said, “85% of the boxes that come in also go out.”
The John Smith Road Landfill has about 13 years’ worth of capacity and a proposed expansion has been controversial.
Amazon has two sites in Hollister. The first to be built is a delivery hub located south of the Hollister Municipal Airport. The facility, which opened in 2021, is described as the last mile of Amazon’s delivery operations. The new warehouse was approved in 2022.
Both facilities were approved under a nondisclosure agreement, allowing the projects to move forward without disclosing Amazon was involved. It took more than two months for Amazon to confirm it was coming to Hollister to occupy the first building. It took the retailer 18 months to reveal that it would operate the warehouse.
Stephens, then a member of the Hollister Planning Commission, voted in favor of both projects. She was appointed by former Hollister mayor and now County Supervisor Ignacio Velazquez, who also supported the projects.
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