Amazon will cease operations at seven warehouses in Quebec.
So what will happen to these massive buildings that sit on large parcels of land?
All the soon-to-be shuttered warehouses are hundreds of thousands of square metres in size.
Amazon does not own the two buildings in Lachine, two in St. Hubert or three in Laval, so the owners will need to find new tenants.
Concordia University economics professor Moshe Lander said a few different scenarios could play out.
“Amazon is still going to continue to deliver in Montreal and in Laval,” he said. “They’re just not going to be using their own employees anymore. So there’s probably still need for distribution centers. It’s just who’s going to operate them.”
One option is to tear down the buildings.
“If the cost-benefit analysis says that despite the fact of being new, it’s still worth tearing down because maybe the location is great or the access to public infrastructure is great, that it’s just worth starting from scratch. You could see that happen,” said Lander, who added that Amazon could also find a third party to operate inside the same warehouses.
“Amazon might say, well, we have the perfect tenant who’s ready to come in here, and it’s the third party that they’re going to be dealing with and they might just take over the distribution center, and so it’s really Amazon in all but name,” he said.
A third, and potentially more likely option is for another company to take over the facilities.
“The broader issue for somebody who’s going to come along is that they’re going to look at the facilities and say, hey, a few million here and there, we can make this work for our purposes,” said Lander.
Amazon told CTV News that the facilities are leased and will remain in use over the coming months as the company winds down operations in the province.
“As we complete this process, our team will work with relevant landlords – as they do any time we exit a leased facility – to determine what’s next for them,” Amazon spokesperson Steve Kelly said.
Lachine borough mayor Maja Vodanovic has an idea to do with the property.
“It would be great if it was transformed into a sports centre and a soccer place that we’ve lost in the West Island,” she said. “You can always ask.”
Vodanovic’s borough once hosted the very popular and always busy Catalogna Soccerplex that was torn down to build condos.
For now, the million-dollar question remains: what will happen to the Amazon facilities?
