PHOTO CAPTION: Amazon Site Plan for a last-mile distribution/delivery center on a 94-acre parcel on Main Street in Gorham. The proposal is for a roughly 146,000-159,000 square foot facility. As a point of reference, the Walmart Supercenter in Scarborough is approximately 208,000 square feet.
PHOTO CREDIT: Courtesy of Amazon, LLC
The Gorham Times was invited to interview Jonathan Greeley, Amazon’s Head of Economic Development for New England, on Amazon’s proposed Gorham delivery station ahead of Monday night’s Planning Board hearing. Notes from the Planning Board meeting can be found in the Municipal section of this issue.
On Monday, July 20, Gorham Times’ managing editor Lori Arsenault met with Greeley. He came prepared to speak to how the facility would improve delivery speed and service for southern Maine customers; the local economic opportunity, including jobs, investment, and small business support; and Amazon’s commitment to working collaboratively through the review process.
In answer to a question, he explained what a ‘delivery station’ is. He said, “This is the last stop of a package’s journey before it makes its way to a customer’s doorstep. So, a customer, whether it’s a business, a home, etc, product comes from facilities elsewhere in New England.”
He continued, “So when you press ‘buy’ on your computer, tablet, or phone, it initiates your order at a fulfillment center elsewhere in New England and your package will make its way here, either by passing through other middle-mile facilities or going directly to a delivery station for package delivery.” He said they sometimes “bring orders together to print and package them to reduce the number of trips we have to take. Or, it might go directly here from that warehouse. So, everything’s coming from 2 – 3 hours away.”
Greeley also described the movement of “three distinct types of traffic” associated with the center: people who work in the building who are associates coming in and out every day; tractor trailers arriving with product, then leaving empty; and the van drivers taking a van for a day of deliveries.
Greeley said that this would be the fourth building in Maine. Last fall they opened a building in Caribou. There is a building under construction in Hermon, just outside of Bangor, and in the last month, the local approval is still going through the state review process for the DEP and DOT for a building primarily located in Waterville, with a small “sliver” of the parking lot in nearby Sidney. He said, “We have looked or evaluated lots of opportunities throughout the state over the last several years. I think this would become a part of our logistic network servicing Southern Maine.”
The approximate radius of this part of the delivery operation is an hour, give or take. Factoring in everything from topography to population density, some vans may only serve Portland, while other vans would have a longer drive to where they are going.
Greeley was excited to share what had been done to the design in answer to the concern from the neighboring residential areas, including lowering all the light poles in the parking lot from 20 to 15 ft, and downlighting to minimize that exposure. There will be a minimum of 40-60 ft. of planted buffer, keeping the existing trees and planting more. The goal is to create as much of a visible barrier as possible between the operations and the residences.
In describing the jobs and benefits, Greeley described Amazon as a unique employer with both hourly and salaried positions. Full-time employees have healthcare day one, paid parent leave, and a program called Career Choice, which has been around for a number of years. He described it as a program where Amazon pays for people to be able to go to school, maybe English as a second language, or to become a nurse, or maybe to get robotic certification, or a Class D license.
Greeley stressed the importance of impacting a community as a good neighbor, sharing the tax burden, creating jobs whether full-time, part-time, or even seasonal for some extra cash. He said, “it’s not uncommon to hear someone say, ‘I started as a seasonal associate, and now, 10 years later, I’m a salaried leader traveling around the country doing this kind of stuff.’ So, it’s a pretty exciting workplace.”
He also mentioned it is a great place for veterans of the armed services, with programs aimed at helping to retrain and bring in veterans to jobs involving skills like logistics operations.
For a second time he stressed “becoming a part of the communities we’re in.” He mentioned a Day of Giving last year, and a significant contribution to the Caribou Performing Arts Center, helping the Center upgrade their facility.
Greeley said that approximately 60% of the items sold on Amazon are actually third party. Locally, that’s about 9 million items sold on Amazon from Maine sellers, the small- and medium-sized businesses that use Amazon to reach their customers, and that a lot of those brands or companies are local to our community here in Maine.
Three points he hoped to make in the interview were: 1) enthusiasm, 2) willingness to engage, and 3) working really hard to answer the questions that have been raised.