OTAY GALERIAS, Tijuana — Just across the San Diego border, Amazon opened its newest fulfilment center in Tijuana. At the warehouse, it is where employees will sort and ship products to customers
It is located in the Delegación Otay Centenario, on the other side of a makeshift settlement in Tijuana. The new white and blue Amazon Fulfilment Center has been welcomed by many Tijuana residents.
Jesus Garcia said his son now works at Amazon, and he is glad the company is putting people to work.
"You actually cannot get access to the facility from the neighborhood because it is part of a large industrial park,” said Vicente Calderón, editor of TijuanaPress.com.
Calderón said although the juxtaposition of the Amazon warehouse next to a large shanty town is jarring, it isn't anything new for the area.
"This is an illegal settlement that has been there for over 20 years,” Calderón said.
With heaps of trash, hanging clothes lines, people trying to patch up their roof and stray dogs roaming the dirt road, Calderón said the new facility in that location shows the dire need for housing in Mexico.
"Seems like most of the people are happy even though it is a poor community, and you can see the type of housing they have,” Calderón said.
A statement from Amazon reads:
"Since our arrival in Mexico, Amazon has created more than 15,000 jobs throughout the country and now we are adding 250 in Tijuana, creating employment opportunities with industry-competitive salary and benefits for all our employees, such as health insurance, life insurance, savings fund, and food vouchers.”
“We feel like this Amazon investment is just going to help. It's going to create employment, it's going to create better infrastructure in Tijuana,” said President of Index Zona Costa Pedro Montejo Peterson in Baja California.
Montejo Peterson, said now that Amazon and other warehouses around it recently set up shop in Tijuana, there are virtually no more unoccupied industrial buildings.
"We only have 1% of buildings left, and that is going to definitely impact our growth. What we’re looking for is to have these developers come back and start developing more and more buildings for the industry since the problem in the pandemic was that all of the developers basically stopped producing,” Montejo Peterson said.
With 10 Amazon Centers throughout Mexico, this newest one in Tijuana makes it 11.
WATCH: Oceanside Amazon warehouse (Aug. 2021)