LOVELAND — While Amazon.com Inc.’s (Nasdaq: AMZN) cavernous distribution center in Loveland won’t be cranking near full capacity until the holiday shopping season, the first packages began flowing through the robot-laden, 3.5-million-square-foot warehouse this summer.

Staff with the e-commerce and technology giant guided members of the media, along with government and business leaders, on a Friday tour of the 6425 Byrd Drive space that Amazon touts as being the size of 60 football fields. 

Eric Ng, general manager of the new Loveland warehouse, compared entering an Amazon facility with “walking into Hogwarts. It’s truly where the magic begins.”

Thousands of robots, some featuring with moving eyes and Wall-E-esque squeaks, and roughly 30 miles of conveyor belts help the 1,100-strong crew at the Loveland facility sort several million packages a week. 

As capacity ramps up in the coming months, Amazon expects to hire hundreds more workers at the distribution center near the Northern Colorado Regional Airport in east Loveland.

“Opening a building of this size and complexity takes an incredible amount of teamwork,” Ng said at Friday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony. 

The Byrd Drive distribution hub was originally was scheduled to open in 2025.

A representative of contractor Trammel Crow Co., which developed the Loveland facility, told BizWest in 2024 that construction costs for the project were estimated at $400 million. 

“I’ve had the opportunity to see all kinds of operations over the years,” Ng said, “and I have to say, there’s something special about this one.”

When plans for the Loveland warehouse were approved in 2022, a city official said that Amazon had not demanded local tax incentives.

Rep. Lauren Boebert, who represents Colorado’s 4th Congressional District and rarely shies away from criticizing perceived foes, favorably compared Amazon’s willingness to aggressively execute on its growth strategies to the plodding pace of government-led initiatives.

“The company saw an opportunity right here in Loveland, Colorado and put real money on the table,” she said. “I want to get this ribbon cut before the federal government finds out what we’re doing and tries to add some regulations.”