FedEx Ground plans to build a $40.6 million facility in Bessemer, Ala., that would create 285 full- and part-time jobs within three years of the project’s completion, the Birmingham Business Alliance (BBA) announced.
The 300,000-square-foot FedEx Ground facility will stand on a 46-acre site off Lakeshore Parkway, a growing logistics and distribution corridor that would place the new building next to a Dollar General distribution center. Construction on the facility is expected to begin around Sept. 1, with completion scheduled for June 2021, the alliance said.
The cities of Bessemer and Birmingham and the Jefferson County Commission have been close collaborators on what the BBA is calling one of the largest economic development projects this year in the Birmingham region.
“The Birmingham Business Alliance is happy to support our local community allies and the company to bring this project to the Lakeshore corridor,” Jeff Traywick, vice president of economic development at the BBA, said. “This project is further evidence that our region’s logistical attributes make our area a prime option for companies looking to grow their distribution footprint in the Southeast.”
The BBA said it worked with FedEx Ground to coordinate the incentives process and facilitated early-stage discussions around the intergovernmental agreement between Bessemer, Birmingham and Jefferson County. Th alliance was also instrumental in bringing recent logistics and distribution operations to the Lakeshore corridor from other major companies like Amazon and Carvana.
In July, the cities of Birmingham and Bessemer entered into an intergovernmental agreement to support the FedEx Ground project, and tax abatements were approved by the Birmingham Industrial Development Board and the Jefferson County Commission.
The site is currently owned by U.S. Steel Corp. and 94 percent of the facility will be located in Birmingham, with the remaining 6 percent–including office operations, a parking lot and an access road–in Bessemer. Both cities are located in Jefferson County.
Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said with nearly 300 jobs and more than $40 million in capital investment, the FedEx Ground project is a boost for 2020, a year marked by Covid-19 and economic challenges.