“On top of that, we will be likely to create an additional 500 jobs before the end of the year for our holiday season,” said Sisi Hakam, senior operations manager at the plant.

The building opened Jan. 15 with approximately 300 employees.

In the building, employees pick, pack and ship customer orders such as books, toys and housewares.

Amazon projects the facility will ship about 300,000 items a day during the holidays, Hakam said. That compares to 215,000 customer orders on an average day, the company says.

The massive facility at Nebraska Highway 370 and 144th Street is currently operating at about half its shipping capacity, so there’s still room to grow, officials said.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen on Thursday morning toured the facility where humans, aided by 4,500 robots, pull product orders, box them and prepare them for shipment.

Pillen described the tour as “absolutely incredible.”

The building is an engineering marvel, full of scanners, chutes and miles of conveyors. The robots motor around the facility, guided by markings on the floor. They pull up to stations, where humans draw out the merchandise from a rack on top that resembles a portable clothes closet.

Workers pack them in the signature Amazon brown cardboard boxes.

​The building’s footprint is 700,000 square feet. It contains more than a million square feet of storage, equivalent to 20 football fields.

Pillen thanked Amazon for investing in Nebraska, saying the company provides retail businesses with “connectivity all over the world.”

“We have incredible entrepreneurs and risk-takers and small businesses,” Pillen said. “They’re the bread and butter of our communities. They’re the bread and butter of Nebraska. And Amazon connects us and allows us to sell our goods, not only in our main streets but everywhere in the world.”

According to Amazon, more than 1,500 independent Nebraska sellers, most of which are small and medium-sized businesses, sell on Amazon.

After touring the high-tech plant, Pillen said people should embrace technology and innovation, not fear it. Technology “enhances careers,” he said.

Amazon officials emphasized they are hiring — the current starting wage $17.75 an hour.

Also Thursday, Amazon announced it was donating $15,000 to the Papillion La Vista Community Schools Foundation to buy Orff musical instruments for elementary schools.

Orff instruments, such as a xylophone, are good for learning because it’s easy for a young student to make a good sound.

“Our teachers use Orff instruments that allow students to learn to read music, and this will allow us to replace them and also expand the number that we have,” said Shureen Seery, assistant superintendent of curriculum at Papillion La Vista Community Schools.