Amazon.com center price tag at $105M
The Amazon.com fulfillment center under construction in the Galloway area of North Little Rock will cost $105 million and total more than 1.2 million square feet, according to a building permit the city issued to the contractor, Alston Construction Co. Inc., a national firm with an office in Collierville, Tenn.
The owner of the one-story building at 130001 U.S. 70 is listed in the permit application as CDP Development Inc., a California firm with an Atlanta office. Project Runner, as the project is called, includes 1,034,626 feet of warehouse space, 24,395 square feet of office space and a mezzanine level totaling 259,272 square feet.
The permit was first reported by Arkansas Business.
Of the 180 acres available on the site, Project Runner will “disturb” 110 acres, according to a construction stormwater permit issued by the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment.
The North Little Rock fulfillment center, which the company said will handle bulky non-sortable and employ more than 500 full-time workers, is the second one under construction in Central Arkansas for the global technology and online retail giant. Amazon also has opened two smaller facilities to facilitate “last-mile” segments of delivery.
— Noel Oman
Poultry firm makes 1st Jordan delivery
Cobb-Vantress has made its first poultry shipment to Jordan in the Middle East, the company said Wednesday.
The Siloam Springs company worked with Saudi distributor Al-Watania Poultry to navigate recent logistical challenges and deliver the Cobb 500 chickens.
Pelayo Casanovas, vice president of Cobb-Vantress operations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific, called the shipment a major step toward supporting the emerging market in Jordan.
“We expect this shipment will be the first of many,” he said.
Cobb signed a distributor deal with Al-Watania Poultry in 2018 and since then has worked to expand meat chicken production in Saudi Arabia.
Cobb, owned by Tyson Foods, has business in more than 120 countries, shipping chickens and other products around the world.
— Nathan Owens
Arkansas Index sees trading day upswing
The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, closed Thursday at 521.43, up 14.92.
“Broad market averages closed lower masking strength in cyclical names ahead of the expected announcement by President-elect Biden of additional stimulus programs Thursday evening as investors rotated into economically sensitive sectors and away from technology shares,” said Leon Lants, managing director at Stephens Inc.
The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.