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A harsh winter made tough work for construction crews building Amazon’s fulfilment centre just north of Calgary’s city limits.

But facility manager Jas Khangra says the massive project underway in Balzac’s Nose Creek Business Park is on track to serve as a hub for online shoppers, while employing “more than 1,000” Albertans on Day 1 of operations.

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“We will have inventory in the facility to meet customer orders and, as the customers place orders from the website . . . we will pick, we will pack, and we will ship the orders to fill the customer promise,” he said.

On Tuesday, politicians, stakeholders and members of the media were given a guided tour of the more-than-600,000-square-foot facility that will serve as a distribution hub for Amazon orders placed in southern Alberta and beyond.

With more than five kilometres of conveyor belts and enough concrete to build four Olympic swimming pools, the facility uses smart systems and innovative technologies to track and fill customer orders.