MENDOCINO CO., 1/28/26 — Amazon is constructing a delivery center in Mendocino County, and its location is just north of Ukiah at the Friends of Liberty Industrial Park.
According to site plan documents obtained from the county, Amazon purchased just under 14 acres at the business park. The new facility, which the documents show will cover 59,000 square feet, is being built by Alston Construction, a Sacramento-based contractor. The facility is planned for 1775 N. State St. in Ukiah.
According to Natalie Banke, Amazon’s West Coast public relations manager, the facility should be finished later this year, though she did not give an exact date of completion.
The popular e-commerce company announced in spring 2025 that it would be tripling its delivery stations in rural areas throughout the United States. Amazon said it planned to invest around $4 billion into its rural delivery project to bring quick delivery to customers in less populated areas.
In a press release issued by Amazon last year, the company said, “This investment will also grow our rural delivery network’s footprint to more than 200 delivery stations, and we estimate it will create over 100,000 new jobs and driving opportunities through a wide range of full-time, part-time and flexible positions in our buildings and on the roads.”
In an interview with The Mendocino Voice, Ross Liberty, the owner of the Friends of Liberty Industrial Park and creator of Factory Pipe, which makes exhaust systems for motorsports vehicles and boats, said that he was originally going to sell the land to Adventist Health, a nonprofit health organization, but the deal did not go through.
“We were working with Adventist Health. They were going to put in a huge hospital there — probably a $800 million project,” Liberty said.
Liberty had been eager to see interest from Adventist Health because of the company’s potential to bring a large number of health care jobs to the area. After that deal fell through, Liberty was approached by Amazon with the help of John Lazaro, a local broker at Coldwell Banker Mendo Realty, and Ukiah-based company Selzer Realty Property Management. Lazaro helped coordinate the deal with Amazon and Selzer Realty, and after negotiations near the end of 2024, the lot was officially sold to Amazon in 2025.
“We had it listed with Selzer Realty. They connected with Amazon through a broker, and that’s how it goes,” Liberty said. “I was happy to make the sale, it was a lot of money, but it wasn’t my preferred goal. My preferred goal was jobs for the community.”
According to Liberty, Amazon will be opening what is called a “last-mile delivery center,” which is a smaller facility compared to Amazon’s other fulfillment and sortation centers.
At these facilities, packages arrive from the sortation centers and are scanned and organized into different delivery routes. These packages are then picked up by Amazon delivery drivers or independent contractors, called Amazon Flex drivers.
The Mendocino Voice sent a list of questions to Amazon regarding the number of jobs the delivery center would bring to Ukiah, what those jobs would look like, and how the delivery center could benefit the local community, but Amazon did not respond in time for publication.
However, it was estimated by the city of Redding that its new last-mile delivery center, which will open this year, will hire more than 100 full-time and part-time employees.
Amazon has a long history of labor and wage complaints filed by employees, and various lawsuits have alleged that the company has violated California labor laws and treated workers unfairly.
One of those allegations is a part of a class-action lawsuit, Martinho v. Amazon.com Inc., where the plaintiff alleges Amazon required new hires at delivery centers to attend trainings and onboarding sessions without pay, which violates state wage laws. The case is still pending in federal court.
Ukiah Mayor Susan Sher said in an interview that she does not believe Amazon will be an ethical employer, and is worried for local residents who choose to work at the delivery center.
“I’m very concerned about how our local folks who get jobs there are going to be treated,” Sher said. “There’ll be certainly a lot of jobs, but if you’ve read anything about people who work at these fulfillment centers, they’re low-pay, dead-end, dangerous jobs for the most part.”
Sher has also questioned the vetting process for Amazon’s Ukiah project and said she doesn’t understand why more reviews weren’t done before the deal was completed.
“No public hearing, no public process. The public had no say in this. That’s one of the biggest things that bugs me,” Sher said. “I just don’t see any upside to this at all except, as they said, people want to get their online orders sooner. That’s not a reason to subject local people to all the downsides.”
The land where Amazon is building its last-mile delivery center is located on the outskirts of northern Ukiah, a region that was going to be annexed as part of a widely contested proposal by the city of Ukiah. However, the Ukiah City Council decided to scale back the amount of land it plans to include in a potential annexation and is currently revising its proposal.
Liberty is also an avid member of No Ukiah Annexation, a local organization that has been advocating against the city’s proposal to annex unincorporated land.
The Mendocino Voice reached out several times to Julia Krog, director of Mendocino County Planning and Building Services, for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Supervisor Madeline Cline, whose District 1 includes the land where the Amazon facility is being built, also declined to comment.
They seriously need to upgrade the Northstate/101 freeway junction kuki lane/in n out hellhole intersection on death with all these new businesses moving into the area.
Of* death. Intersection of death, is what my kids and I call it after leaving the high-school each day and heading north.
Corporate investment and jobs coming into the local area. That’s great news! Now, if the employees are not treated fairly they could just quit, then draw unemployment and sit at home playing video games.
“Amazon has a reputation for customer focus & convenience. Known for excellent customer service, easy returns, fast delivery, and the popular Amazon Prime.
It is recognized as a leading innovator, especially in cloud computing (AWS), e-commerce, and consumer electronics like Kindle and Echo.”
This is not a “fly-by-night” company. We should welcome them. We have needed new industry here, ever since the decline of logging and sawmills. That was replaced by a Black Market drug business, which failed. Now we are making progress and the future looks good.
You’re a foreign troll who doesn’t reside in Mendocino County Dave. Get lost.
….
I think you are out of your element here. You don’t seem to understand it’s just a delivery location; none of those other partner corporations you mentioned. Did you cut and paste your comment from a google search. Black market marijuana came about in the mid 90’s. Hmmm! Pretty sure it was here, generations before that. 😂
Yipper. We coulda used another dispensary instead. Like how many we got, only 12?
Gotta take care of all the unemployed sitting on the couch.
Amazon has a reputation for misleading customers with inaccurate product descriptions & of promoting products that don’t meet quality standards.
And Amazon prime is a waste of money.
You got that right we need business for jobs and a zillion people use Amazon and for all those people who show there IQ buy the language they use need to get a life and a IQ
Recall Madeline Cline. She has no idea what she’s doing at the BoS. All she does is parrot what Bernie Norvell croaks out meeting to meeting. They are way too cozy.
Well, if an appointed, not elected, Ukiah Mayor or City Council Member is against it, It’s bound to be a great thing
Madeline is the single sane board member… the rest are monkey see, monkey do
Great. Ukiah needs jobs, not political statements. This town has way too many boarded up store fronts. Employment is the #1 need, then housing for the employed. Come on, BOS and Ukiah City Council, let’s get this county moving!
They wouldn’t want that to happen.
The BOS & Mayor want Ukiah to slowly decend into the depths of hell.
Even the guy who sold them this land said that compared to what he was hoping for, Amazon would not be a good job creator.
I wonder if he had held out longer, or contacted other health systems who might want to expand like Sutter, if he would have had better offers?
Well it sounds like the only person who is or has benefited from this facility going in is Ross Liberty!! Bring in 100 new jobs but how many are going to be lost with UPS, USPS, Fed-Ex those who are local people in jeopard. 100 new jobs paying minimum wage or less from what is being said in this article. A majority of these warehouses are robot/computer ran with a small handful of live employees watching over them “just in case”. The only way to protect the people is for them to unionize. It’s funny that Ross Liberty asks the committee for help to block the annexation but never asked the committee about this going in?? Again looking out for himself.
So, if the facility in Shasta County only created 100 full-time & part-time jobs and their population is twice the population of Mendocino County, we can anticipate 50 jobs and they are not all full-time jobs. I don’t see much new county tax generation as it’s just a delivery center.
Additionally, the new site conveniently located near the old railroad tracks, which WILL be developed as drone delivery corridors. And yes, they will replace human rural route drivers.
Amazon is on the forefront of the coming robotics era. And it’s true that the organization is notorious for poor treatment of its low-level employees. But if we get our packages delivered a day earlier it will all be worth it?
Too bad the Adventist thing didn’t work out. I wonder what happened there.
That space should have been something like the Epicenter in Santa Rosa for the youth & families in our community. Number one complain from youth & families, there’s nothing to do here. Number two complaint, state street is lined with Dispensaries.
An Epicenter type place could not do well enough here to survive because families don’t have money for entertainment.
Wayne, families from Ukiah hold entire parties at the epicenter in Santa Rosa, I’ve been to one a year since 2016.
Heck, many people go to Santa Rosa for Kaiser and Sutter, might as well shop while you’re there! And Santa Rosa is rated the 2nd most safe town in California. We all live in Ukiah, but can’t get our medical needs met here. What should go into that site, is a hospital.
Mendocino Voice. Please investigate WHY
this Amazon project was NOT brought before the community for comment before approval?
Is this the new county protocol – to bypass the community’s input?
Shouldn’t upgrading the poorly designed and dangerous on-ramp to Hiwy 101 been a requirement before approval of this project? Perhaps with a cost/share arrangement?
One can hope that the whiners and no growth crowd are deprived of process when they have no vested interest.
It took 10 years for Costco to go in. A lot of people against it. Now almost everyone shops there, they love it! No complaints. Only thing, I see is there is & will be a huge, traffic problem. It’s already site, of many accidents, at peak hours. The merging off freeway, accross to go south. It’s already hard to get off freeway & on, at that intersection. Now trucks?? Coming out in the middle, of it all merging, into one lane? The trucks can’t use crazy north ramp, too short. Have to go through to Forks on ramp. Costco, was made to & addressed, the traffic. Costco is city, not county. This warehouse, was asked to do, no road alterations, no planning, no costs to company, for traffic congestion. But jobs are a great thing to add to Ukiah. And a lot of people, buy from Amazon. Not myself. I shop local, if possible.
I agree with everything you said. I’m not innocent, we get our toilet paper from Amazon. And 50 jobs is 50 jobs. But the traffic, at that area is SO deadly, especially after the high school gets out. If there were an emergency involving evacuating the northwest end of Ukiah, that community would be gridlock and stuck. It’s absolutely a human hazard. The on/off ramps are horrible but the kuki/state street mega intersection is just ripe for someone to die at. Raleys parking lot exit into kuki; A Problem!! Lovers Lane left turners; A Problem! Starbucks left turn exit onto Kuki; A Problem! People not knowing how an unprotected left turn light works; A Problem! Guy with his pants down near wingstop everyday; A Problem!
Northbound freeway onramp of Death; A Problem! Northbound exit onto state street with a left turn; A Problem! A right turn off the ramp onto state street right into a merged lane; A Problem!! The morning high-school traffic backing up the freeway south bound off ramp till it overflows onto the freeway creating weaving drivers; A massive problem. There should be a caution light and a cop there every morning for 15 minutes. It’s absolutely disgusting that nothing has been done. This is a public saftey emergency, and even if a non-evil corporation moved into the industrial park, hell, even if a neighborhood was built all over Old Masonite, traffic is the issue.
The lack of planning on surrounding infrastructure is part of why this project is happening quickly. The city has higher standards for development aside from the local input from the community. This is why annexation of the surrounding parcels should be implemented by the city. The county resources are stretched too thin and are more easily manipulated by folks like Ross and Amazon. Which explains why they are adamantly against annexation.
Since when did the input from the community matter.
Ukiah s gone to hell. What is with all the massage parlors? They cheapen Ukiah more than its already cheapened itself.
This area never thrived more than it did during the “black market
drug business”.
The took our wealth, and now they sell us back our own weed.
And what about the jobs that are being lost due to these contracts not being renewed with UPS and FedEx and USPS?
In Fort Bragg Four jobs Will be terminated And the others will be reduced.
And you’ll be lucky if you get your package in the square box that came in and not smashed and smelling like cigarette smoke because they’re in an independent flex delivery car
Many jobs**
Many jobs**
Wah wah wah mayor, public process? Let’s look at annexation. Public process is a farce. City doing what they want despite the public wishes. If you don’t like this employer then bring us some industry that provides jobs that you like. When has the city ever done that?
More jobs are good. County needs to have an Environmental Assessment or an Environmental Impact Study done specifically regarding the local traffic the Amazon delivery hub will create. Mitigation measures must be implemented prior to occupancy.
Drove by there today. Lots of workers. Several large buildings coming along in various stages of construction. This is a big operation. When finished it won’t just serve Ukiah and surrounding area, it is going to serve the rural northwest coast.
Concerning the on-ramp to Hwy 101, just make it mandatory everyone heading north gets into the left lane so trucks can enter. Not that hard. “Most” drivers already do this. Those not paying attention to the signs don’t get over.
The other large building will be a very big new UHaul facility. More congestion on the N State street freeway entrance and exit. Increasingly poor air quality. More crappy jobs. Is this really the future we want?
U-Haul facility to help Californians move to Texas for better paying jobs, lower cost of living and no state income tax? To meet demand they need to speed up construction on that one.
Dave doesn’t live here. They’re using Google earth to see what’s up. Everyone knows Texas sucks. Dave always speaks in generalizations because they have no real knowledge of mendo. Go away Dave.
Knock, knock. It’s me, Dave.
Dave’s not here, man.