The Amazon Air Hub at CVG isn't expected to open until 2021 but already it's starting to attract new business to the area. The Regional Economic Development Initiative (REDI) says announcements by Amify and Satco are just the beginning of what is expected to be a large logistics and technology ecosystem.
Amify Vice President Sean Lee says his company, an Amazon reseller and service provider, will hire 90 people by the end of 2022. Besides the Cincinnati location in East Walnut Hills, the company also has offices in suburban Washington, D.C. near Amazon's HQ2.
"We're planning to plant a lot of our advertising, client services, operations and logistics jobs here in Cincinnati and I think the proximity to the Prime Air Hub is a true testament to what type of companies are going to be attracted to really support the entire Amazon ecosystem," Lee says.
Satco is buying a building in Loveland to make air cargo containers. In a news release, the California-based company says, "We are excited for the opportunity to be closer to our customers." It names FedEx, UPS, DHL and Amazon. Satco's 115,000-square-foot building is at 457 Wards Corner Road.
Amazon's Air Hub is going to push the envelope on technology. So says the CEO of CincyTech Mike Venerable. "And that's just going to pull a lot of changes into our region. It's going to create a lot of interesting opportunities and some challenges I'm sure too as we try to insert the infrastructure," he says.
Venerable says the region will need not only logistics companies but technology and analytics businesses as well. He wonders if getting Amazon Air might be even better than missing out on HQ2.
REDI CEO Kimm Lauterbach says her staff studied what happened when UPS established a hub in Louisville. "If you think about it, the Prime Air Hub is going to be twice as large as UPS's air hub and DHL's global super hub so we know we're already at the tip of the iceberg for what's coming."
She says this is an opportunity for Greater Cincinnati to be the leader in technology-based logistics.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to Amazon Air as Amazon Prime Air.
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