According to the developer and investor, the distribution center in Kojetín is unique not only because of its size but above all because it offers significant savings in a built-up area. While the total area of the hall exceeds 187,000 square meters, the floor plan occupies less than a third, i.e. only 51,000 square meters. The height of the building exceeds 27 meters in the places where the stairwells lead.
"I am really proud that today we can hand over to Amazon a building that is absolutely number one in terms of the connection of modern technologies and environmental friendliness. The Dobrovíz project was already unique in these areas, but with the distribution center in Kojetín we have again moved several generations further. I believe that the state-of-the-art logistics complex will help Amazon in its further expansion in the e-commerce sector, which has experienced a literal boom in recent years," says Pavel Sovička, CEO of Panattoni for the Czech Republic and Slovakia, adding that the project will be beneficial due to the large number of job opportunities for the whole region.
"I am looking forward to the fact that Amazon will offer a modern work environment in the new robotics center, where special robotic units will facilitate the work of employees. When the building is fully operational, we will employ up to two thousand permanent workers," states Michal Šmíd, Amazon's general manager for the Czech Republic.
In the area of the former sugar factory
The new distribution hall was built on the land of the former sedimentation tanks of the sugar factory. The surrounding mud pits were filled with reinforced concrete recycled from its demolition. The entire brownfield therefore had to be rehabilitated and ecological burdens removed before construction began.
"Investment in the revitalization of aging or dilapidated campuses is our specialty. I am proud that we have once again managed to jointly create an industrial zone on land with low ecological value, which will rank at the very top in the field of environmentally friendly and technological construction. Thanks to the connection to the local industrial tradition, the city of Kojetín will become one of the centers of the European online shopping scene, and I believe that we will contribute to the further growth of living standards in this area," adds Milan Kratina, CEO of the Accolade investment group.
A demanding project with a number of specifics
The construction of the four-story building itself was in many ways specific and demanding in terms of coordinating the construction work and the companies on the construction site. At one moment, around a thousand people were always moving around the construction site. For comparison, in single-story buildings, this is about 150 people as standard. The turnkey construction was provided by the company Goldbeck Bau, which worked on it with approximately sixty mostly Czech subcontractors.
The logistics hall meets strict environmental requirements and thus aspires to an exceptionally high rating as part of the BREEAM New Construction environmental certification at the Excellent level. This ambition influenced the construction of the building right from the beginning.
The Goldbeck Bau company has a factory for the production of concrete elements 12 kilometers from Kojetín. Due to the fact that it is close to the railway site, it was possible to bring approximately 6,800 panels, the weight of which exceeded more than 80,000 tons, to the construction site in an ecological way by train. The trains replaced over 2,200 trucks that would have needed to be used to transport these panels. Precisely the distance from which the building material is imported is one of the many criteria that are evaluated during the BREEAM certification.
The emphasis on ecology and sustainability is evident in other aspects as well. The area also includes, for example, a lizard habitat and bee hives. Of course, 500 trees will also be planted, 300 of them directly on the premises, the rest in Kojetín. The entire distribution center will be heated by heat pumps instead of gas.
“We also care about the operation being environmentally friendly, which is why we installed modern 4MW photovoltaic panels on the roof. To give you an idea, this exceeds ordinary home installations by three orders of magnitude," concludes Michal Šmíd for Amazon.
