Amazon-Target

Amazon has committed to opening a massive fulfillment center in the tiny Cuyahoga County village of North Randall, where more than 2,000 people could find jobs.

(Reed Saxon/Associated Press)

NORTH RANDALL, Ohio - Amazon will bring more than 2,000 jobs to the tiny Cuyahoga County village of North Randall, where a massive fulfillment center is slated to rise from the demolition dust of Randall Park Mall.

The e-commerce giant finalized a lease deal Thursday on a planned 855,000-square-foot building, which could open during the second half of next year on a 69-acre site at Warrensville Center and Emery roads. News of the potential deal broke in July, after the project cropped up on a public meeting agenda. But North Randall was vying against other, unidentified sites.

Reached late Thursday night, Mayor David Smith was exultant.

"I'm lost for words, because we are so fortunate to get this project," said Smith, who watched the decline and eventual death of what was once called the world's largest shopping center imperil the community he's led for 14 years and called home for nearly twice as long.

The mall closed in 2009. Demolition started in late 2014.

Now Seefried Industrial Properties, Inc., of Atlanta plans to build a $177 million facility on the site for Amazon, according to documents circulated last month at a Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority board meeting. Workers in the building, with assistance from robots, will pack and ship smaller items including electronics, toys and books. Amazon uses robots at 20 percent of its fulfillment centers, including one on the Columbus area, a spokeswoman said.

A rendering displayed at a July Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority board meeting shows what the proposed Amazon fulfillment center in North Randall might look like.

The jobs will be full-time positions. Amazon isn't saying how much employees will be paid, but they'll be eligible for benefits including health care and retirement plans.

The company will start advertising jobs six to 10 weeks before the facility opens.

"We pay a competitive, market wage and, on top of that, offer benefits starting on the first day," spokeswoman Lauren Lynch said.

Amazon also will cover 95 percent of the costs of tuition and books for employees of at least a year who pursue studies in high-demand fields, even if the workers then leave Amazon for other jobs. That opportunity is huge, said Deb Janik, senior vice president for real estate and development at the Greater Cleveland Partnership, the regional chamber of commerce.

"This is about not just providing work and a wage," she said. "It's providing accessibility to resources for continued individual betterment, which leads to family betterment, which leads to community betterment."

Joe Roman, the chamber's president and chief executive officer, described the Amazon deal as a "game-changer" for the village and the broader region. "We know the work is just beginning, and we look forward to a long, successful partnership with Amazon," he said in a written statement.

JobsOhio, a private, statewide economic-development corporation, also had a hand in the deal, as did Team NEO, a local economic-development group that is JobsOhio's regional partner.

"We are pleased to partner with Amazon to revitalize and bring jobs back to a property that has stood vacant for too long," John Minor, JobsOhio's president and chief investment officer, said in a written statement. He noted cooperation among many parties, including the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority, which will issue taxable lease revenue bonds as part of the project financing.

The state hasn't announced any financial assistance for the North Randall project - yet. A JobsOhio spokesman said the organization will recommend incentives for the North Randall facility. Details of that funding will become public after approvals.

Amazon secured job-creation tax credits for fulfillment center projects outside of Columbus, where the company now employs 4,500 people. JobsOhio and the state also have worked with the online retailer on data centers, a sorting center in Twinsburg and other initiatives.

"In the bigger picture, what it means is that Ohio keeps moving forward in the digital economy," said Ted Griffith, managing director for information technology and distribution at JobsOhio. "We're taking on the next generation of e-commerce and where e-commerce and e-retail is going. ... From the local viewpoint and lifting families, we're deeply excited for North Randall and the area."

A site plan shows the location and orientation of a planned Amazon fulfillment center in North Randall, on 69 acres of the former Randall Park Mall site.

Amazon picks its fulfillment-center sites based on myriad factors, including proximity to customers and labor. Being close to population hubs is even more important as the company promises increasingly swift delivery - within two days, one day, or mere hours - and extends its reach into other businesses, including groceries and prepared foods.

"Our ability to expand in Ohio is the result of two things: incredible customers and an outstanding workforce in the state," Sanjay Shah, Amazon's vice president of North American customer fulfillment, said in a written statement. "We very much appreciate the state and local elected leaders who have supported Amazon's arrival in North Randall and look forward to bringing more jobs and investment in the coming months."

The company has tied up smaller spaces at other properties in Northeast Ohio. And The Plain Dealer reported in May that Seefried has a deal to buy a second dead mall, Euclid Square Mall in Euclid, for another large project. Seefried won't identify its tenant, and Amazon won't comment on the proposal. But plans submitted to the city show a 650,000-square-foot building that could be expanded to 1 million square feet.

Last month, a Seefried executive said the North Randall and Euclid developments are on parallel tracks. So they both could happen. Just this week, Euclid City Council approved rezoning of 70 or so acres of the former mall site from retail to industrial use, to support the project.

North Randall also rezoned its dead mall for industrial repurposing after Chris Semarjian and Stuart Lichter, a prolific investor-developer pair, managed to acquire much of the property. Semarjian and Lichter are selling the future Amazon site to Seefried after securing the final, key parcels, including a former Burlington Coat Factory and a onetime J.C. Penney building that Ohio Technical College had been using for its PowerSport Institute programs.

Smith said Lichter and Semarjian also will buy a vacant, dilapidated hotel on Northfield Road, at the edge of the mall site, from the village and demolish the building within the next six months. Amazon wanted assurances that the blighted hotel would come down, said Smith, who hopes that restaurants and other businesses will flock to the edges of the site to serve a worker base that will be almost twice as large as the village's population.

The North Randall Village Council and the Warrensville Heights Board of Education have approved 15 years of 75 percent property-tax abatement for the Amazon facility. School board records show the village will pass along 33 percent of its income-tax collections from workers at the fulfillment center to the district.

Smith never publicly identified Amazon as the tenant during discussions about the project, which was code-named as Project Goliath. Now, after decades of holding out hope for a turnaround - and months of holding their tongues - he and other public officials have plenty to say.

"We have been persistent in our effort to prepare the old Randall Park Mall site for economic development," Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish said in a written statement. "For nearly two years, we worked with Mayor Smith, the land bank and the prosecutor's office to put a vacant property back into productive use. Bringing Amazon to this site is a huge win for Cuyahoga County."