The new Amazon.com warehouse facility in Aurora officially opened for business this week with more than 250 hourly employees, according to company officials.

The 452,400-square-foot facility is a sorting center, which means packages arrive already sealed and are then sorted by zip code to speed up delivery times by the local Post Office. Located 5 miles south of Denver International Airport, the new facility is at 19799 E. 36th Drive in Aurora, and is also known as Building 29 in Majestic Commercenter.

Amazon spokeswoman Ashley Robinson said the company hopes to hire at least another 100 people for the facility. Hourly pay starts at $13.

Hints of Amazon’s first physical step into Colorado came February, when the company began charging sales tax to its customers in the state. The hint that Amazon would open up a warehouse here came in the form of help wanted ads in The Denver Post.

The Majestic Commercenter is a 1,500-acre business park that also houses hubs for FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service.

Amazon won’t say whether adding a fulfillment center is being considered near the Aurora location. Those typically require 800,000 square feet. But the company does have sortation centers near fulfillment centers in 15 locations.

Sortation centers tend to be smaller, at around 200,000 to 300,000 square feet, according to logistics consulting firm MWPVL. But they are also in cities that already have fulfillment centers. In Kent, Wash., an Amazon sortation center cut delivery time by nine hours so customers could still get two-day delivery if they ordered by 11:59 p.m., instead of the previous 3 p.m., according to a story in The Seattle Times. It also enabled Sunday delivery.