JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – UPS announced plans Friday to invest $196 million in its ground package hub in Jacksonville, adding more than 260,000 square feet to the building and advanced technology and operations automation.
When completed in the fall of 2019, capacity will increase by one-third to more than 80,000 packages processed per hour at the facility on Jacksonville's Westside.
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More than 1,650 full and part-time UPS employees work at both the hub and its adjacent four package centers. The company has committed to new full-time jobs as well as expanded employee parking as part of the plan, but has not said how many workers it will add.
On Tuesday, Jacksonville City Council approved $4.3 million in tax breaks in exchange for the expansion, which the city was told would include 10 additional full-time jobs at an annual yearly salary of $50,675 by the end of 2020.
“Jacksonville is one of the larger U.S. ground processing facilities and an important transit point to connect road and rail in the UPS network,” Kim Wyant, president of UPS’s Florida District, said in a released statement. “We appreciate the state and local community support for the new technology and jobs that give UPS flexibility to meet growing needs of our customers.”
Onsite liquefied natural gas fueling will remain on the property to power UPS's growing fleet of alternative fueled tractors. Changes to the facility will provide a larger trailer staging area. Another 46 brown package car positions will be added for local delivery operations.
UPS currently employs more than 16,500 people across Florida in package delivery, ground freight, aircraft operations, air and ocean freight forwarding and contract logistics.