Amazon plans 'last-mile' warehouse in Holbrook for local deliveries

Amazon plans to open a warehouse in Holbrook to make "last-mile" deliveries in Islip Town and beyond, officials said.

The 147,900-square-foot facility would join at least three others that the online retailer plans to open on Long Island. It already operates two warehouses in Bethpage and one in Shirley.

"We’re working on bringing additional last-mile facilities to Long Island," Brad Griggs, Amazon’s senior economic development manager, told the Islip Town Planning Board last week.

The retailer expects to rent two warehouses that developers have proposed to build at Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach and at the old Cerro Wire property in Syosset. Amazon also wants to use a former Waldbaum’s supermarket in Carle Place as a warehouse.

The Holbrook last-mile operation would be among Amazon’s largest so far in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

Up to 150 warehouse jobs would be created, with between 30 and 50 being full-time positions, Griggs told Islip Town officials. There would be "several hundred more jobs" for delivery personnel, who are independent contractors, he said.

Warehouse workers would be paid at least $15 per hour and managers would earn $60,000 per year, on average, according to Amazon’s applications for tax breaks from the Nassau County and Suffolk County industrial development agencies for the last-mile projects in Syosset and Westhampton Beach.

An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment Tuesday on the Holbrook project.

The retailer is seeking special permits from Islip for additional parking, different lights, more driveways and a sound barrier.

The property at 717 Broadway Ave. is along Veterans Memorial Highway and north of an existing FedEx distribution center. It was recently used by brick-and-mortar retailer Consumers Kitchens & Baths warehouse stores.

Griggs said about 20 Amazon tractor-trailer trucks would deliver boxed consumer purchases to the Holbrook warehouse each day, with up to 60% of the 18-wheelers arriving overnight. Warehouse employees would unload the trucks, sort the packages and reload them into about 200 delivery vans, which would start their 10-hour routes around 10 a.m. The vans would return to the warehouse parking lots starting at 7 p.m., he said.

Holbrook homeowners and Islip planning board members expressed concerns about increased traffic, light pollution and stormwater runoff from the property.

"You hear FedEx all right," said neighbor Matthew Grucci, whose house is north of Amazon’s proposed loading docks for tractor-trailer trucks and the existing FedEx warehouse. "I’m concerned about noise pollution."

Amazon’s real estate attorney, Eugene De Nicola, said the company will work with Islip officials to address Grucci's concerns and those of other homeowners. However, the attorney said the warehouse’s around-the-clock schedule every day of the year isn’t negotiable.

Amazon "cannot agree to any conditions which would limit or restrict in any way the days or hours of operation," De Nicola said. "Other than that there are conditions we can agree to."

By James T. Madore

james.madore@newsday.comJamesTMadore

James T. Madore writes about Long Island business news including the economy, development, and the relationship between government and business. He previously served as Albany bureau chief.