CHARLTON, Mass. — 2.8 million. It's not just a number. It's the square footage of Amazon's new Charlton fulfillment center. That's 48 times the square footage of a football field.

Ironically, the massive building will prioritize smaller items described as 'sortable.'

"The goal here is to stock a wide variety of items and inventory of that scale that can be distributed really quickly across the northeast and in particular, New England," said Amazon's New England economic development manager Jonathan Greeley.

The facility will have a focus on robotics. Self-driving racks of product will head to an associate, where purchased items will then be packed and prepared for shipping. Those products are yet to be delivered to the facility, but dozens of practice boxes could be seen throughout the floor.

The Charlton facility joins Central Mass. locations in Westborough, Uxbridge and Worcester. Greeley says filling out the region is intentional.

"When we build a building like this, it's with an eye towards better selection for our customer, quicker pace of delivery, and ultimately being closer to the customer," Greeley said. "Over time, Amazon has focused on a regional strategy where we make sure that we have the variety of different infrastructure from an operations perspective, can be located in this market."

Town leaders are hoping this is an economic driver. Town administrator Andrew Golas says they're projecting roughly $65 million in tax revenue over the next 20 years. 

"Really along Route 20, our town's growing," Golas said. "And I think this is really the first major step for us to move that forward."

"We've got a $10 million community partnership grant that invests in everything like roadway infrastructure, to education, to public safety, to open space and recreation," added Greeley.

Construction began in March 2022. Golas acknowledges it's a big undertaking which may come with problems, particularly with traffic on Route 20, but it's something the town and Amazon both say they're prepared for.

"Amazon is a logistics company," Golas said. "They're not interested in creating traffic jams. They want to make sure that traffic continually moves. We know that there's going to be some growing pains and we look forward to working through with them to really make the improvements that are really necessary around Route 20, around the town, to make their operation move smoothly and make Route 20 work better." 

When fully operational, Amazon expects to have more than 1,000 employees working in Charlton. They're planning on having this facility up and running come the holiday season.