Amazon's newly launched 30-minute delivery service is up and running in the Seattle area and may extend further into the city's Eastside suburbs, permit filings show.

Though Amazon may never be able to teleport items directly to a customer's doorstep, the company is on a mission to shave down the time it takes to fulfill an order.

Amazon has long touted two-day delivery, a perk of its Prime memberships. Then as it regionalized its logistics network after the pandemic, it offered same-day delivery for certain areas.

Now the company is testing an ultrafast delivery service, Amazon Now, in Seattle and Philadelphia, with a heavy emphasis on groceries and other household essentials.

The company is currently running Amazon Now in Seattle out of a site in the city's Roosevelt neighborhood, at 6401 12th Ave. N.E., according to screenshots from the Amazon Flex app seen by The Seattle Times. Permit applications filed under the address show the site is on the second floor of Roosevelt Square, a shopping complex that includes a Whole Foods grocery store.

Permit applications filed in the Ballard neighborhood also show Amazon is planning a site at 5100 15th Ave. N.W., previously an Amazon Fresh Pickup site.

The company used to operate two Fresh Pickup sites in Seattle, but shuttered the last one in Sodo at the end of 2023.

Filings for the Amazon Now sites say they'll run 24/7 with a small front-of-house area where Amazon Flex drivers — gig workers who are not Amazon employees — will pick up orders before delivering them to customers with their own vehicles.

The Amazon Flex app shows certain ZIP codes in Snohomish County and the Eastside are part of Amazon Now's coverage area. And permit applications filed with the city of Bellevue as far back as July show a possible expansion.

The potential Bellevue delivery site is at 12368 Northup Way, near Bellevue's Spring District.

Amazon, notorious for its use of company lore or clever names for projects, listed the name Amazon Peregrine in filings in Bellevue and Seattle. The peregrine falcon is the fastest animal in the world.

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.

Amazon's 30-minute delivery offering isn't meant only to feed the company's need for speed. It's the latest tinkering Amazon has made to its burgeoning grocery business.

When Amazon purchased Whole Foods in 2017 for $13.7 billion, the company hadn't dipped its toe much into the grocery business. It sold household essentials, but perishables and fresh food weren't the driver for Prime memberships.

Since then, Amazon has launched two different grocery store formats, Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go. Fresh stores function more like traditional grocery stores. Go stores resemble convenience stores and operate mostly in urban areas, though Amazon has placed a few in suburban Snohomish and Pierce counties.

Initially infused with Amazon's Just Walk Out technology and other automated features, the physical-store strategy has been scaled back for a more human feel. Meanwhile, the grocery delivery business is taking off, according to CEO Andy Jassy.

During an earnings call in October after Amazon released financial results, Mark Mahaney, an analyst with Evercore ISI, asked Jassy whether the company believed it could really change people’s habits and consider Amazon as their first grocery option.

Jassy said that the company’s grocery business, not counting the physical stores, is growing fast and brought in over $100 billion in gross sales over the past year, “which would make us a top-three grocery in the U.S.”

Amazon's strategy to meet customers where they are has also led them to pilot a new program within Whole Foods. The chain may be known for its organic-branded food products, but Amazon is testing a store-within-a-store concept at a Whole Foods in Pennsylvania where customers can purchase name-brand food for pickup.

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