The online retail giant Amazon expects to hire at least 1,000 new employees to staff its distribution center in Livonia, set to open next year.

The news came Tuesday as the Michigan Strategic Fund approved a $7.5-million grant for the company, which said in documents it could create up to as many as 1,500 jobs during its busy seasons at the regional 'fulfillment' center. Company representatives said say the new jobs come with a full array of benefits.

"The low unemployment rate in Michigan has raised concern for the C company’s ability to hire the appropriate workforce," Michigan Economic Development Corp. MEDC staff wrote in a memo to the Michigan Strategic Fund board members. "The funding will help the C company with recruiting and ensure this project occurs in Michigan."

The highly automated product distribution center is expected to open in October 2017, state officials said. Amazon did not immediately release details about hiring at the facility at 13000 Eckles Road. More information about careers at the company can be found at https:// www.amazon.jobs. /

To build out the new center, Amazon expects to make a capital investment of nearly $90 million in Livonia.

Amazon, a 21-year-old e-commerce outfit based in Seattle, also considered Ohio and Indiana for the regional fulfillment center, according to state officials. The new site, near the intersection of I-96 and I-275 nterstates 96 and 275 and about 20 miles from Detroit Metro Airport, was bought from the trust in charge of disposing of old General Motors properties off-loaded during the company's bankruptcy process, officials said.

Ashley Capital is building and leasing the new 1-million-square-foot mega-distribution facility on land that previously contained a GM's Delco Chassis plant. Ashley purchased the brownfield site from RACER Trust in 2015.

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"The low unemployment rate in Michigan has raised concern for the C company’s ability to hire the appropriate workforce," MEDC staff wrote in a memo to the Michigan Strategic Fund board members. "The funding will help the Company with recruiting and ensure this project occurs in Michigan."

Founded in 1994, Amazon.com is the largest i Internet-based retailer in the world by total sales and market capitalization. The company started as an online bookstore and later diversified , later diversifying into a smorgasbord of products, including The company has morphed rapidly from online book peddler to shipper of furniture, clothing and jewelry and and then to consumer electronics. production and cloud infrastructure provider.

The company It employs more than 200,000 people worldwide.

Amazon has not received any incentives from the Michigan Strategic Fund in the past. Wayne County Executive Warren Evans said in a statement Tuesday that the City of Livonia and Wayne County "have teamed up to offer local support to the project in the form of a property tax abatement and public infrastructure improvements."

Amazon has 277 workers in Michigan today, according to state documents. It already has about 100 people working downtown in office space at 150 W. Jefferson in Detroit. Amazon also operates what it calls a ' "sortation" ' center in suburban Brownstown Township, and also has an audio-books operation called Brilliance Publishing in Grand Haven, near Lake Michigan.

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The sortation center is a type of warehousing and shipping facility. Compared to enormous Amazon order fulfillment centers of 1 million square feet or more, t The newer sortation centers, which Amazon has rapidly been adding near large cities since 2013, are about one-fourth the size of their bigger fulfillment center cousins — and are designed to be speedier and expand deliveries to Sundays. The Brilliance operation in Grand Haven has about 150 people.

Michigan was not among the first places in the country where Amazon hired lots of people or made big investments. The company has morphed rapidly from online book peddler to shipper of furniture, clothing and jewelry and then to consumer electronics production and cloud infrastructure provider. Texas, Delaware. Indiana, Arizona, New Jersey, Illinois, Wisconsin and other states got Amazon shipping centers well before Michigan.

MEDC chief Steve Arwood said he had been unaware that Amazon was interested in a fulfillment fufillment center in Livonia until about two months ago.

The company, he said, "moves fast."

Contact Matthew Dolan: 313-223-4743, msdolan@freepress.com or . Follow him on Twitter @matthewsdolan