Amazon eyes 140-acre Holbrook site for $1 billion fulfillment complex

Amazon is proposing a $1 billion, 4.2-million-square-foot fulfillment complex in Holbrook that would be 21 times larger than its biggest existing facility on Long Island.

The Seattle-based e-commerce giant wants to build the two-building development on a wooded, 140-acre site near the intersection of Sunrise Highway and Beacon Drive, said Brad Griggs, Amazon’s director of economic development for the Northeast.

“We believe in starting with our customer and meeting our customer needs. We don't have this type of operation on Long Island. We believe that we have a network gap, not just for Long Island, but in the Northeast region,” he said.

Amazon submitted a site plan application to the Town of Islip on Thursday afternoon, a town spokeswoman confirmed via email.

“The application will undergo a formal review process in accordance with applicable federal, state, county, and local laws and regulations, including the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). Receipt of an application does not constitute approval or indicate any determination regarding the merits of the proposal," she wrote.

Amazon's plans submitted to the town included an application to change the site's zoning from Islip Pines mixed-use planned development district, which it was changed to in 2014 in preparation for a developer's residential and commercial project that never came to be, back to the previous designation, industrial.

Amazon's proposed Holbrook development would include two connected facilities. One would be a 3.7-million-square-foot "sortable fulfillment center" where merchandise would be stored as inventory before being purchased by customers. After purchase, the items would be taken from the facility by trucks to distribution centers or delivery stations around the Northeast for delivery to customers.

About 300 tractor trailers would travel to and from the facility daily, Amazon spokesman Austin Stowe said.

The fulfillment center would be considered a "first-mile" facility because it would mark the beginning of the delivery journey for merchandise, Amazon said. 

The other building Amazon wants to construct on the Holbrook site would be a 450,000-square-foot same-day storehouse, from which independent contractors driving personal vehicles would pick up purchased merchandise and deliver it to customers.

Both facilities would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

If the Holbrook development is built, it would be among more than 100 sortable fulfillment centers in the United States, including two upstate — in Syracuse and Rochester — but would be the first on Long Island, Griggs said. One is under construction and nearly finished upstate, in Niagara.

More than 60% of the products in Amazon's first-mile facilities are sold by small- and medium-sized businesses on Amazon.com.

The Holbrook property is owned by Scannell Properties, an Indianapolis-based developer.

Amazon will buy the land from Scannell if its development proposal is approved by the Town of Islip and other government entities, Griggs said.

Amazon also plans to apply for tax breaks from the Islip Industrial Development Agency, he said, adding the project will not be built without the tax breaks.

Amazon expects to initially employ at least 1,000 full-time workers at the site. About 20% would work in salaried positions, such as robotics technicians, human resources, logistics and operations leadership. The rest would be hourly workers with starting pay at $23 an hour.

If the project is approved, construction would take 18 to 24 months, Griggs said.

Amazon has nine facilities totaling more than 1 million square feet on Long Island. The largest facility is a 200,000-square-foot delivery station in Syosset. 

In 2016, the company opened its first Long Island site, a distribution facility in Bethpage. Amazon ramped up its expansion of distribution facilities and warehouses on Long Island and nationwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, which started in 2020, when online shopping boomed.

Among Amazon’s nine sites on Long Island are six delivery stations, which are last-mile distribution centers, one of which is in Holbrook, at 717 Broadway Ave., near the site where Amazon wants to build its new complex.

A last-mile site is used to deliver purchases the remaining distance to customers' homes or jobs.

Amazon’s other three sites on Long Island are a same-day site in Melville, from which independent contractors pick up packages in their vehicles to deliver to customers; an Amazon XL Warehouse in Bethpage, from which large items, such as TVs and appliances, are delivered by independent contractors in box trucks; and a grocery delivery facility in Bethpage.

Among the new facilities Amazon plans to open on Long Island are a 150,348-square-foot warehouse and distribution center proposed for part of the 77-acre, now-vacant Sunrise Mall in Massapequa. Plans for the project were submitted in November to the Town of Oyster Bay, which is still reviewing them. Amazon is under contract to buy 26.7 acres of the mall property from Sunrise Mall Holdings LLC, which plans to demolish the whole mall if Amazon’s project is approved by the town.

Amazon also plans to open a 113,000-square-foot delivery station in leased space on a 35-acre property at 195 Spagnoli Rd. in Melville. The project is going through the approval process with the Town of Huntington.

By Tory N. Parrish

tory.parrish@newsday.comToryParrish1

Tory N. Parrish covers retail and small business for Newsday. She has worked at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Observer-Dispatch in Utica, N.Y.