The presumed Amazon.com Inc. distribution center continues to proceed through the planning and permitting processes at a brisk pace, as the Spokane County Building and Planning Department earlier this week issued a grading permit to begin earthwork at the project site on the West Plains.

The permit was issued upon completion of an environmental review, which states a total of nearly 500,000 cubic yards of material will be cut or filled as part of the grading work at the 79-acre project site at 10010 W. Geiger Blvd., south of Spokane International Airport and east of the Interstate 90-Medical Lake interchange.

The fulfillment center will employ 1,800 to 3,000 people, according to documents submitted as part of the environmental review.

Details in the environmental review describe the site’s topography as flat with a general downward slope to the north, which would need to be graded to accommodate the building, stormwater management facilities, and parking areas.

A building permit application for a massive $181 million, four-story, 2.6 million-square-foot fulfillment center structure and a site development permit application for paving, utilities, curbing, sidewalks, drainage, and landscaping improvements were still under review at the Journal’s press time.

Also at press time, Amazon’s name still isn’t officially attached to planning and building documents, and Lauren Lynch, a spokeswoman for the Seattle-based online retail giant declines to confirm or comment on the project, which is codenamed Project Rose Fulfillment Center.

The site plans for Project Rose, however, are nearly identical to a development in Oklahoma City that was codenamed Project Star until Amazon last month confirmed that it’s constructing a fulfillment center there.

Employees at Amazon fulfillment centers pick, pack, and ship items to customers and provide customer service for merchants within the company’s Fulfillment by Amazon network.

The Project Rose environmental documents show an aggressive development schedule with construction anticipated to begin this month and to be completed in August, 2019.

Layton Construction Co., of Sandy, Utah, is named on the permit applications as the contractor for the project. Layton also is the contractor on a regional Amazon fulfillment center in Salt Lake City that’s similar in scope to Project Rose.

T.C. Pursuit Services Inc., of Portland, Ore., submitted the Project Rose application to the Spokane County Building and Planning Department on behalf of the Portland, Ore., office of Trammell Crow Co., which has developed other projects for Amazon.

A county project coordinator had earlier told the Journal that a company’s name could be attached to the project as soon as a real estate transaction regarding the project site is completed, which likely was awaiting the now-completed environmental review.