Amazon seems to be finding a nice home in Windsor.
Not only is the e-commerce giant currently constructing its second major facility in town — a $230 million, 823,000-square-foot fulfillment center on former tobacco farmland at 1201 Kennedy Road and 1 Joseph Lane — it’s planning a third major location there.
Amazon is seeking town approval to repurpose an existing 154,496-square-foot light industrial building at 100 Helmsford Way into a “last mile” package delivery station.
Trailer trucks transport packages to delivery stations from other Amazon fulfillment and sortation centers. The packages are unloaded into the building where they are sorted, picked and reloaded into delivery vehicles inside the building. The delivery vehicles are typically vans.
The Helmsford Way property was built in 1994 and is currently vacant. It was most recently occupied by Arrow Recovery, a company that specialized in computer-equipment recovery.
Amazon doesn’t have plans to expand the building but it will make interior and exterior modifications to the property, according to its project application.
Jim Burke, Windsor’s economic development director, said Amazon needs the approval from the planning and zoning commission, which is set to review the proposal at its Oct. 13 meeting.
Burke said the delivery station would employ about 40 full-time workers, not including drivers who would bring goods to and from the facility, many of whom are employed by third-party companies.
Growing Windsor presence
The delivery facility would represent Amazon’s third major Windsor operation.
Amazon’s first 1.5 million-square-foot distribution facility at 200 Old Iron Ore Road came online in 2015.
In June the town approved a three-year tax abatement for Amazon to build a new 823,000-square-foot distribution hub at 1201 Kennedy Road and 1 Joseph Lane.Indiana developer Scannell Properties has already begun construction of the massive fulfillment center on 147 acres owned by the Thrall family farm, which is slated to be ready by next year Burke said.
A recent Hartford Business Journal analysis of Amazon’s presence in Connecticut shows that it currently occupies more than 3 million square feet in Windsor, North Haven, Cromwell, Stratford, Wallingford, Bristol, Enfield, Trumbull, Orange and at Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks. It also plans to occupy another 1-plus million square feet at facilities in Windsor, Wallingford and Danbury in the next year.
Already employing thousands of workers in Connecticut, area real estate brokers say the company is eyeing additional locations in the eastern and western regions of the state as the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the online shopping boom.
