Amazon, the e-commerce giant, has doubled its warehouses in our area during the pandemic.

They now encircle the Philadelphia region with more than 50 locations, write Jake Blumgart and Christian Hetrick for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Amazon has 57 buildings online or underway across Philadelphia, collar counties, the Lehigh Valley, South Jersey, and northern Delaware.

The company has infrastructure under construction in our region that almost matches the square footage of Lincoln Financial Field.

The company’s explosive expansion is unmatched by anything before it, according to real estate and industry analysts,

“They’ve been gobbling up distribution space for more than five years in a big way, but the pandemic really accelerated that growth,” said Adrian Ponsen, director of analytics with CoStar Group in Philadelphia. “There’s no single company that’s anywhere near on the scale of what they’re doing.”

This expansion is partly a reflection of increased demand for deliveries and partly a result of Amazon’s desire to take on its main rival, Walmart.

Another factor is that the Philadelphia area has so far been underserved by Amazon, according to economist Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors in Bucks County.

“I think Amazon needed some catch-up in this area and that need was just accelerated by the pandemic,” said Naroff.

Read more about Amazon in The Philadelphia Inquirer.