What's up with the Amazon warehouse in Elkhart County? The company offers a preview.

ELKHART ― The massive Amazon warehouse that’s been standing on the north side of the Indiana Toll Road for more than a year could finally be ready to open in the second half of next year.

During a tour of the facility on Thursday, Amazon officials explained how installation of material-handling equipment should get under way in the massive building between County Road 17 and County Road 19 in the next several weeks.

In addition, the company expects to begin the hiring process in the first half of next year, because nearly every position in the facility will require training to work with the sorting equipment and robots that will help employees store and eventually pick products for shipment to other Amazon distribution facilities.

Amazon delays: What's up with the massive Amazon warehouse in Elkhart County?

The four-story warehouse is considered a first-mile warehouse, a place where products the size of microwaves and smaller are stored for faster distribution to regional hubs or last-mile facilities like the one in South Bend or the other one the company is getting ready to build near the Elkhart Municipal Airport.

Kyle DeGiulio, senior economic development manager for Amazon, didn’t want to address what caused the slowdown in the project, which the company initially indicated would be operational last year.

“We’d like to focus on the future,” he said, adding that the hub will eventually employ 1,000 with a starting wage of $20.50 and first-day benefits like health insurance, tuition-reimbursement and more.

Though officials didn’t provide an elaborate explanation, they did indicate that a large section of mezzanine that was located above the first floor of the warehouse was removed because of plan changes.

DeGiulio estimated that about 100 trucks a day will be coming into or out of the hub. Incoming products from supplier businesses will go in at the west side of the building; outgoing products will leave at the east end.

Tape already has been placed on the first floor to mark where about 10 miles of interconnected conveyor belts will move products throughout the estimated 2.8 million-square-foot structure for storage and retrieval.

There also will be a couple of hundred robots throughout the building ― but mainly on the upper floors ― that will be used to move products for storage or picking and are only about three feet tall.

On the top floors, those moving products for storage or retrieval will mostly be working on the outside of the storage area to minimize the chances of injury. Fewer will be inside the fenced enclosure and will wear sensor jackets to ensure they don’t get bumped by the robots.

“The robots are there to assist employees, not replace them,” DeGiulio said, adding that the equipment speeds the process but also helps prevent repetitive-motion or lift injuries, for example.

Even with a relatively tight labor market, the company is confident it will be able to fill the positions because of its pay and benefits as well as the opportunity to work in a climate-controlled building with several break rooms on each of the upper floors as well as a 20,000-square-foot lunchroom with a patio on the first floor.

Once it’s operational, DeGiulio can foresee local food trucks and other vendors also being able to set up outside the warehouse to serve the shifts that will be operating around the clock.

With an estimated investment of $200 million between the two Elkhart County warehouses, Amazon also recently announced plans for an $11 billion data center between South Bend and New Carlisle.

It's official: Amazon to build $11 billion data center near South Bend

Officials have indicated that the data center could begin operations as soon as the end of the year, and the company also has additional land nearby for expansion of its data center capabilities in the future.

As of January, the company said it has created 26,000 full-and part-time jobs in Indiana, added $19.8 billion to the state’s GDP because of its investments and supports more than 6,000 independent Hoosier sellers on its Amazon store.

Email Tribune staff writer Ed Semmler at esemmler@sbtinfo.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Amazon aims to fill 1,000 jobs at its Elkhart operations next year