AKRON Amazon — the trailblazing online retailer on a building binge — confirmed Monday that it's sinking roots into Akron, planning to open its third fulfillment center in Northeast Ohio on the site of the former Rolling Acres Mall.

In many ways, the warehouse is the next generation shopping mall — a massive retail site where nearly everyone shops, but no one but workers visit.

It promises more than 1,500 new jobs, some stabilization to the Akron’s income tax base and an end to the era of so-called “ruin porn” documenting the decay of the once prosperous double-decker shopping mall that drew people to the region.

For Akron-area consumers, a new local warehouse might mean one-day, or even one-hour, home delivery of books, bath towels, bolts, basketballs or any of the millions of products Amazon regularly stocks, observers say.

For workers, Amazon brings jobs, both for the company inside the warehouse and for contractors who will deliver Amazon’s goods to people’s homes.

Ohio’s minimum wage is $8.55 per hour.

Amazon last year set its own minimum wage for its employees at $15 per hour.

That equates to a $6.45 per-hour pay boost — or 43 percent — between Ohio’s lowest-paid workers and Amazon’s minimum earners.

Amazon contractors — including those that deliver many of its packages — are not included in the minimum pay rate and must figure out how much they can earn once they pay for fuel, wear on their vehicles and the time spent delivering packages.

The opportunity to work as an Amazon employee inside the warehouse or as a contractor outside is sure to lure some Greater Akronites away from fast food, nursing aid and other low-wage jobs for a chance to boost their incomes.

Yet Amazon, some observers caution, is no economic panacea.

“I think Amazon locating here is going to be good for jobs...you see unemployment rates go down,” said Amanda Weinstein, assistant professor of economics at the University of Akron.

But, she cautioned, the warehouse work is demanding, staff turnover can be great and, after Amazon sets up a fulfillment center in a community, wages for others who do similar work in an area often drop, she said.

It’s too soon to say what impact Amazon’s two new fulfillment centers in Northeast Ohio have had, she said. Both are Cuyahoga County. North Randall’s fulfillment center on the former Randall Park Mall site opened in September. And Euclid’s, which is on the site of the former Euclid Square Mall, opened earlier this year.

But Weinstein pointed an analysis last year in “The Economist” that show flat or falling industry wages are common in place where Amazon opens its distribution centers.

"The Economist" analysis — based on numbers gathered before Amazon raised its base wage at $15 an hour — showed that warehouse workers in areas where Amazon operates earn about 10% less than similar workers where there is no Amazon.

Weinstein said that Akron and Northeast Ohio have a strong history of organized labor and that unions have benefited workers by raising pay and benefits here.

Amazon is a non-union operation and pushes back against efforts to organize, she said.

“When it comes to working conditions, I think it depends on the warehouse,” Weinstein said.

Weinstein said a friend who works at an Amazon warehouse facility in another state is very happy in her job, in part because she has a great boss.

Weinstein is hopeful Amazon will find a lot of good bosses to hire in Akron because of the city’s history of warehousing and transporting, from the days of canals to freeway.

“We are so good at transporting goods,” she said. “I would imagine we have people here who know what it’s like to be in industry and what works.”

Some of those local Amazon bosses will come from local universities, said Mahesh Srinivasan, who is the management director for the Institute of Global Business at the University of Akron.

Supervisors, who oversee shift work for about warehouse workers, usually need a four-year degree and critical thinking skills, he said.

“I do a lot of career advising in supply chain for jobs that start at $50,000 to $60,000. Some students have gone to Amazon, but in places like Denver or Florida," Srinivasan said. “Many didn’t want to leave home…and now they can find those jobs here.”

BATTLE FOR CONSUMERS

Amazon’s push to build fulfillment warehouses in Akron and across the country is driven by an economic war with WalMart that will play out over the next five years, Srinivasan said.

WalMart shoppers can buy something online and drive to their nearby store 30 minutes later and pick up their purchases, he said.

Amazon, with few brick-and-mortar stores, is trying to compete with that by shortening its delivery time, he said.

Nationwide, shoppers who subscribe to Amazon Prime get free two-day delivery on many products they order. But in some locations one-day and even one-hour delivery is possible.

The new Akron warehouse might bring those shortened delivery times to the region, Srinivasan said.

“What’s going to be different is that Amazon can deliver to your doorstep in a couple of hours,” he said.

Women are driving the trend, UA’s Weinstein said.

“That often gets left out of the conversation…but women do most of the shopping,” she said.

Because many women have full-time jobs, they don’t have time to buy things at traditional brick-and-mortar stores.

“If all you have is 20 minutes of leisure time a day, you’re not going to spend it going to a store to pick up batteries,” she said.

To compete with Amazon, successful traditional retailers offer additional services online shopping can’t match.

In Hudson, for example, she said there’s Western Reserve School of Cooking. It’s a retail store that sells the much of the same cookware you can buy on Amazon, but it also offers cooking classes.

“You see how to make a crepe and how the crepe pan works,” she said.

The new Amazon fulfillment center in Akron likely won’t pose any more of a threat to local retailers than Amazon did without such a localized presence, she said.

But another way traditional retailers might consider completing, is to offer flexible work time, Weinstein said.That would allow female workers to shop locally instead of ordering online.