Amazon bought more than 4,100 acres of land during the pandemic that the company was earmarking for new warehouse development—back in 2021, when the e-commerce giant was doubling the size of its logistics network, including an estimated 370M SF of leased industrial space as well as new distribution centers.

Since April of 2022—when Amazon revealed that it had over-extended its warehouse footprint based on an over-estimation of the projected growth rate of e-commerce—the company has been deploying every possible way to trim at least 30M SF (equivalent to $2B in industrial leases) and to revise its blueprint for how much industrial space it will utilize moving forward.

Across the country, the company postponed the opening of newly completed fulfillment centers for up to two years; in rural communities, where Amazon had purchased large tracts of land and local planning officials had approved the development of an Amazon fulfillment center on these sites, the company abruptly canceled the projects before ground was broken.

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