Just in time for Christmas, Amazon.com Inc. is delivering exactly what Virginians asked for this holiday season: jobs. The online retail giant will open two distribution centers in Chesterfield and Dinwiddie counties by next fall, a $135 million investment that is expected to create more than 1,350 jobs, Gov. Bob McDonnell announced Thursday. McDonnell’s aides called the deal the largest single jobs announcement in Virginia since 2004.
McDonnell called Amazon’s investment “a tremendous win for the greater Richmond region.”
The deal has been in the works since May and required McDonnell to dole out $3.5 million from the Governor’s Opportunity Fund to the two counties to help them close the deal with Amazon. Amazon also will receive $850,000 for the Dinwiddie County project from the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission and is eligible for benefits from the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development.
“The impact of it isn’t even just jobs and investment for the two localities in Virginia,” said Suzanne West, spokeswoman for the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, “but it reinforces the logistics and transportation advantages Virginia has.”
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While the economic benefit of the new jobs and investment will surely reverberate throughout the region, Amazon won’t be pumping sales tax dollars into Virginia’s coffers. Virginia will maintain its long-held policy of not forcing companies to collect online sales tax even though court rulings have said states can require it if a company has a physical presence in the state.
Seattle-based Amazon recently reached an agreement with Tennessee to begin collecting sales tax from customers in 2014 and announced a similar 1,300-job investment in that state Thursday.
Attempts to reach Amazon were unsuccessful, but Dave Clark, vice president of Amazon’s North American operations, said in a statement that company officials “look forward to opening two new Amazon facilities in the Richmond area next year.”
