STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — After a $700 million investment and the creation of at least 4,200 permanent jobs, the developer of Matrix Global Logistics Park — which houses Amazon and Ikea facilities — is looking to lease the last of four warehouses on its 200-acre Bloomfield site.
The project represents one of the largest industrial property investments in the borough, and was built within five years without any major stops or delays.
“This project has created a significant number of jobs,” said Borough President James Oddo, noting that in addition to full- and part-time positions, thousands of construction jobs have been created during the course of the project. “It is the biggest bonanza of jobs that we’ve seen in this borough in a long time.”
The Cranbury, N.J.-based Matrix Development Group is currently seeking to lease the last 975,000-square-foot structure on the property, said Joseph Taylor, company CEO.
“Our last building of about 975,000 square feet is about half finished,” he said. “It’s a speculative building [which means] we don’t have a tenant for it yet. But that’s how we did the other three. We’d love to have another warehouse user, like Ikea and Amazon, here.”
Once the final building is leased, Taylor said the company would like to invest further in the borough and has been looking for additional property.
“We have been looking around at a number of different sites,” he said. “We haven’t settled on any one site.”
SITE HISTORY
Matrix Development Group broke ground on the logistics park in late fall 2016.
First to be built and occupied was a 855,000-square-foot warehouse, which is now home to Amazon’s $100 million Fulfillment Center, which opened in 2017. That facility employs more then 4,000 people who work alongside robots to pick, pack and ship customer orders that are delivered to various geographic areas.
Another 975,000-square-foot facility is occupied by Ikea, which opened in 2018. The Staten Island unit supports delivery to many customers in New York City, whether they are shopping in store, at the IKEA Planning Studio or online. The Advance has previously reported that about 200 people are employed at the facility.
Recently leased to Amazon by Matrix was a new 450,000-square-foot warehouse to be used as a delivery station that will help speed up deliveries to local residents. The new warehouse will have a different use than the existing Staten Island Amazon facility. It will be for “last mile deliveries,” which means packages from the facility will go to a specific geographic areas in New York City.
Part of the success of the site is that Matrix was able to have MTA buses stop on the property to get employees to and from work, said Taylor.
Included in the $700 million investment is $25 million used for road improvements on and around the site, which included making Gulf Avenue a one-way street, he said.
Matrix Development Group has been in existence for 35 years, and its portfolio of industrial properties boasts some as large as 40 million square feet throughout New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The company also has an extensive portfolio of office and residential properties.
