Amazon, the online retail behemoth, is proposing to build a more than 100,000 square-foot distribution facility in Essex, according to town officials.
The town’s Development Review Board is set to review the proposal, titled “Project Moose,” during a public hearing Thursday evening, according to town manager Greg Duggan.
Duggan and Ken Signorello, the chair of the town’s trails committee, confirmed Amazon would operate the proposed facility. Additionally, site plan documents submitted to the town Development Review Board show Amazon Delivery signs in site sketches.
Full details of the project, however, are unclear. An email sent to Amazon’s media inquiry line was not returned, and a representative with Scannell Properties, the real estate company spearheading the site plan proposal, declined to comment.
Scannell Properties is an Indianapolis-based company that has spearheaded warehouse and distribution facilities for Amazon in a number of states.
The proposal, if approved, would build out a 107,000 square foot distribution facility on 22.94 acres of land in Essex’s Saxon Hill Industrial Park off of Thompson Drive, according to Essex Development Review Board documents.
The project was reviewed last week by the town’s Conservation and Trails Committee, which reviews all development applications in town and offers non-binding recommendations on projects.
The facility is being proposed in the town’s Resource Preservation-Industrial district. Town zoning in the district requires that properties maintain a 50-foot buffer between the property and the street, Signorello said.
The buffer is meant to to help with noise and light pollution, and maintain natural environments while preserving animal habitats, according to Shannon Jackson, the vice chair of the trails committee.
But Signorello and other trails committee members during their meeting said they were concerned about a request by Scannell Properties to waive the 50-foot buffer zone and instead build water retention ponds.
“Obviously a lot of developers would like the ease of not having to keep this buffer and just clear-cutting everything,” Jackson said in an interview. “I was a big proponent that we demand or recommend that they do keep this buffer, that it is a standard of our town, and especially in this industrial zone, it’s a requirement that such a buffer be kept for the beauty of our town.”
While the trails committee made recommendations to enforce the 50-foot buffer, ultimately the authority for final approval of the proposal lies with the town’s Development Review Board.
Nonetheless, Signorello said he has concerns with the proposal.
One of the requirements of the zoning district, he said, “is that development should be kept in harmony with nature.”
“And this does not,” he said. “I think there’s no effort being made to satisfy that requirement.”
Additional details on the project’s timeline were not available. Voicemails left with Essex’s town planner and community development director were not returned.
The facility, if built out, would be the first Amazon facility in Vermont. Amazon has a growing presence in New England, with the company’s largest facility in the region opening in 2023 in Windsor, Connecticut.
In January, the company announced it would be closing all of its warehouses in Quebec, affecting 1,700 full-time employees and 250 temporary workers.
The closure came less than a year after several hundred employees in Laval, Quebec moved to unionize their workplace. Amazon’s decision to close its Quebec-based facilities drew the ire of local labor representatives, who suggested the company was flouting labor laws.
This story will be updated.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Amazon is seeking to build a distribution facility in Essex.