Large amounts of public funds are being poured into a planned Airport Business Park near Eppley Airfield, located on the northeastern edge of the City of Omaha in Nebraska. The priority site contains many residences and small urban farms. Residents have concerns over lack of information about the project and whether they will have to relocate.
On 6th December 2022 the State of Nebraska awarded US$400,000 in Economic Development Awards funds to the Omaha Development Foundation to help create a master plan for an area near Eppley Airfield. The grant was the first step in implementing the state’s Airport Business Park Program (ABP Program), created by the Nebraska Legislature in 2022 in response to negative economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic drawing grants from Nebraska’s allotment from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Signed into law on 11th March 2021 the purpose of ARPA is to support the country’s recovery from the economic and health impacts of coronavirus and recession.
In February 2023 the Nebraska Department of Economic Development (DED) elected to double the total amount available through its ABP Program, awarding US$800,000 in Planning Grants. The Omaha Development Foundation and the Omaha Economic Development Corporation each received a US$400,000 grant. Officials have proposed a powerful inland port authority to provide a support structure for the business park; a plan was presented to Omaha City Council on 20th December 2023. The port authority would focus on bringing large commercial and industrial developers to the city. It would have limited democratic input. A 9-member board, appointed by the Mayor, would co-ordinate developments related to rail, airports and waterways and be given authority to oversee investments in the area. The inland port authority would have legislative powers to issue and sell revenue bonds to construct buildings and infrastructure and be charged with guiding economic development in a wider, approximately 300 acre area, around Eppley Airfield.
Graphic depicting map of proposed business park near Eppley Airfield, as envisaged by a development team led by the Greater Omaha Chamber, Burlington Capital and the North Omaha-based Omaha Economic Development Corp. The priority site is north of Carter Lake. Image: Nebraska Examiner, 22/12/2023
The 160-acre priority site, to the west of Eppley Airfield near the northern shore of Carter Lake, contains about 320 mixed-use land parcels. Under the ABP Program about US$90 million in state funds would be used to turn the site into shovel-ready land ready for industrial development. City of Omaha officials are in negotiations with the private owner of the second site, a 70-acre area located west of Carter Lake. The priority site contains homes and small urban farms. Community leaders say affected communities have not been informed about the project. Joe Higgins of Levi Carter Sherman Neighbourhood Association said residents had to research information about the project themselves due to scarcity of detail provided by authorities. He said the neighbourhood had been marginalized since the 1950’s but most homes pre-date that time with residents having deep roots in the area. Some Omaha lawmakers also say there has been a lack of engagement with residents.
One of the urban farms operating in the earmarked site is City Sprouts which grows thousands of pounds of produce for a community pantry. It was established in 2021 and in 2023 it provided 15,000 pounds of food. City Sprouts also teaches agriculture providing internships and other learning opportunities. Manager Ann French said the farm was drawn to the area because of the truck farm and agricultural history. Currently covering 7-acres City Sprouts has plans to grow, building a greenhouse and a barn and quadrupling the produce it shares with neighbours. She said it would be impossible to find a similar site elsewhere in Omaha.
A 19th February 2024 community meeting, the first to include most of the major players in the business park and give residents clarification about the project, was attended by about 75 people. The key issue concerning residents was whether they would be forced to relocate and, if so, how they would be compensated. Several people voiced concerns over how little information had been shared with residents about the fate of homes they had built and lived in for many years. There were outbursts of frustration and anger. At one point a woman shouted “are they taking your home?” and a man called the discussion a “clown show” then walked out. Information about the proposed inland port authority to oversee the business park project clarified that most members would be appointed, but seats would be offered to two residents, two business owners and one youth.
Large amounts of funding, including public funds, is also being ploughed into expansion and renovation of Eppley Airfield, already the largest airport in Nebraska handling more than 5 million passengers in 2023. On 17th January 2024 the Omaha Airport Authority announced approval of a US$950 million terminal expansion and renovation plan at Eppley Airfield, funded by federal grants along with airport revenues and future airport bonds. Yet more public funding for Eppley Airfield expansion was announced on 14th February 2024; a US$3.1 million grant for Terminal Building Improvement Phase 7 will support increased capacity and improvements including a new terminal. The money is part of US$15 billion in funding for US airport infrastructure under the provisions of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, $11 million of which was allocated for Nebraska airports.
On 14th February 2020 a massive Amazon warehouse near the entrance to New York Stewart Airport in Orange County, New York, measuring more than 1 million square-feet, was granted a payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreement by the Town of Montgomery Industrial Development Agency (IDA). The $20.5 million tax break was agreed with a 5-2 vote. It was reported that felling of nearly 190 acres of trees to make way for the warehouse, a ‘fulfilment center’, would begin four days later. The project site is immediately north-west of New York Stewart Airport, next to the intersection of two major highways, routes 17K and 747. The two satellite images below show the site in September 2019, pre-construction when the trees were still standing, and in December 2020, by which time trees have been felled and the warehouse building along with earthworks surrounding it and an access road are clearly visible.
Satellite imagery of the Amazon warehouse site in Montgomery (top left), next to New York Stewart Airport (bottom right). Use the slide bar in the middle of the two images to see the changes at the project site between September 2019 and December 2020.
Works at the site continue and the warehouse is scheduled for completion in time for the 2021 holiday shopping season, i.e. the beginning of November. At 1,010,880 square feet the warehouse, one of Amazon’s largest windowless giants, will be the largest building in Orange County. The facility will operate day and night 24/7, will have its own wastewater treatment plant and there will be a parking lot for 1,200 tractor-trailers and cars. Montgomery residents say that noise and dust from construction is having negative impacts on their lives. Many local residents had raised concerns over negative environmental impacts of increased traffic, potential contamination of nearby Tin Brook and stormwater runoff when the Amazon warehouse was approved, in February 2020. Local business owner Barbara Lerner, whose property abuts the eastern edge of the Amazon site, angered by approval of the warehouse, referred to two pending lawsuits against the project, one asserting that part of the warehouse site was improperly zoned, the other claiming that the developer had misrepresented the nature and character of the area.
Dan Berger, founder of a citizens’ group with 500 members, Residents Protecting Montgomery, said it was difficult to understand the rationale for IDA board members allowing a tax break for a large company like Amazon. The group’s ‘Mega Warehouses 101‘ document lists the concerns of the residents uniting to protect their town when officials fail to research the detrimental impacts of mega-warehouses, defer to warehouse firm laywers when questioned and seem determined to permit warehouse developments. Truck and car traffic will increase noise and air pollution and the scale of the warehouses and associated road traffic strains small town infrastructure including road maintenance, power grids, water usage, policing and fire services. A majority of the jobs are minimum wage, insufficient for workers to reside in Montgomery and lowering property values for existing residents due to zoning changes from residential to industrial and aesthetic impacts such as 40-foot high cement walls and 24-hour operations bringing light pollution at night. Zoning changes could pave the way for more warehouse development around the airport, on green space and farmland. Speaking about recommendations made by a study of the Route 17K corridor Maureen Halahan, president and CEO of the Orange Country Partnership, recommended creation of two economic development zones, one around the airport and another along 17K, which would permit commerical development on rural/agricultural areas.
Expanding Amazon’s footprint on Long Island
In May Amazon leased a planned warehouse in Woodmere, on an 11-acre site to the south of JFK Airport. The facility will be built and owned by JFK Logistics Center LLC, an affiliate of Wildflower Ltd., a Manhattan-based developer. Wildflower has been granted $16 million in economic development incentives by the Town of Hempsted Industrial Development Agency (IDA). An incentives package approved in April 2020 included a 15-year payment-in-lieu-of-taxes (PILOT) agreement and exemptions from mortgage recording and sales taxes. The 422,000 square foot facility, a ‘last mile distribution center’ will be Amazon’s second largest in the region and brings the firm’s planned warehouse space in Long Island to more than 1.4 million square feet.
At the east end of Long Island, Gabreski Airport, located immediately to the north of Westhampton Beach village, in one of the wealthiest areas of New York, the Hamptons, hosts an Air Force Base and provides services for a wealthy clientele who can afford private jets, helicopters and single-engine recreational planes. Plans for an Amazon distribution hub on Suffolk County owned land near the airport are not landing well with the seaside village’s 2,000 inhabitants who are concerned over the potential increase in aircraft traffic. One resident with a summer home in the village said “it’s going to be horrible…I’m already hearing airplanes when I sit outside by the pool in summer. Can you imagine if Amazon is here?” Described in the New York Post as a ‘mammoth warehouse’ the 91,000 square foot facility may be large compared to other buildings in the beachfront village setting, but is dwarfed by many airport-adjacent Amazon facilities measuring up to 1 million square feet, and exceeding this scale in some instances.
In October 2020 Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency gave preliminary approval for $2.3 million in tax breaks for the developer of the Amazon warehouse near Gabreski Airport, Rechler Equity Partners. The incentives package also included a 53 per cent reduction in property taxes. Legislator Robert Trotta called the decision “unconscionable” and called for it to be immediately rescinded, saying that Amazon’s IDA application was “fraudulent”. Along with supporters he called for rescinded tax breaks because Amazon competes with small businesses, many of which were struggling because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Another legislator, Anthony Piccirillo, said the tax break pushes the tax burden “onto middle class and working families throughout Suffolk County”. Christopher McNamara, president of Greater Smithfield Chamber of Commerce, said Amazon did not need the tax break, “$2.3 million is a drop in the bucket to them, but to Suffolk County and to taxpayers of the county, we need it.” Nevertheless, Amazon secured the tax break in November 2020. Robert Trotta said that Rechler had misled Suffolk County by stating on an aid application that Amazon would select an out-of-state warehouse if lawmakers did not approve the tax breaks. Speaking to the New York Post he asked “Why are we giving billionaires tax breaks? The tax breaks they got should be immediately rescinded.”
In North Carolina and Oklahoma
In North Carolina, Amazon is planning a 620,000 square foot warehouse, a $100 million ‘import processing center’, in West Smithfield Industrial Park, next to Johnston Regional Airport. Johnston County has approved a seven year abatement on property taxes, accounting for 90 per cent of withholdings for the first three years the tapreing downwards to 50 per cent on year seven. Amazon will also get a five year grant on personal property. The total economic development investment grant over the seven year period amounts to more than $3.3 million. Johnston County officials worked on the deal for about six months before Amazon officially announced the plans in May 2021. If the project goes ahead as scheduled the facility will launch in 2022.
In Oklahoma, a new Amazon operations facility with a sortation center, next to Tulsa Airport, is anticipated to be completed later this year. The 270,000 square foot facility, Amazon’s third large project in Tulsa, will take up a 40 acre site, located on Tulsa Airports Improvement Trust (TAIT) land. Welcoming the expansion of Amazon’s footprint in Tulsa, Joe Robson, Chair of TAIT, said, “This initiative capitalizes on the use of available land that is adjacent to the airport as well as Highway 168, making it extremely attractive to companies looking to expand near Tulsa’s largest Industrial and transportation corridor.” TAIT will enter into a long-term land lease and Tulsa International Airport Development Trust (TIADT) will provide financing incentives through its Tax Increment Finance (TIF), whereby a firm keeps or captures any increases in property tax revenues from post-development increase in the value of their property. Alexis Higgins, CEO of TAIT, said “Property development is one of the airport’s key initiatives, and we are thrilled to have Amazon continue their investments here in Tulsa and on airport land”. Amazon’s new facility is the latest addition to the airport industrial complex which includes 4,900 acres hosting the city’s largest aviation, logistics and transportation providers. A further 700 acres of property are available for industrial development.
On farmland in Fargo
In North Dakota, a new Amazon distribution center near Fargo Airport (also known as Hector International Airport) might be built without tax breaks. Fargo City Commissioner Tony Gehrig told WXFG News that Amazon had not, as yet, asked for any tax breaks for the project, which would mean “more tax revenue for the community”. A large area area of farmland will be lost. The site, approximately 110 acres of farmland north of Fargo Airport, was recently annexed and rezoned by the City of Fargo. The new Amazon distribution center will be by far the largest building in the City of Fargo, and possibly the largest in the entire state of North Dakota. The massive fulfillment center will be 40 foot high with 1.3 million square foot of warehouse space. ‘Amazon is paying for two road projects to support its new facility, and preparing to seek bids for construction of new turn lanes (traffic lanes that allow vehicles to make a right or left turn at an intersection or into a side-road) on existing roads to facilitate access.
Amazon did not officially announce its Fargo warehouse project until October 2020, more than two months after work had started on the site when Fargo City Commission approved permits and zoning without naming the company involved. By January 2021 the pre-cast concrete walls were being erected. By April 2021 construction of the distribution center was moving forward at a rapid pace. Structural steel, roofing and the pre-cast walls were nearing completion and 1,300 yards of concrete were being poured daily for the interior floor. More warehouse development is proposed next to the Amazon distribution center, and might be supported by tax breaks. Minneapolis-based Hyde Development, is seeking a $5.25 million property tax break for an industrial park spanning 44 acres and hosting 643,000 square feet of warehouse space. More farmland would be paved over. The site is zoned for agricultural uses, a designation intended to protect farmland. But the City of Fargo’s land use plan is for industrial and commercial development in this area.
Land-based distribution hubs
Aside from the planned warehouse near JFK Airport, the airport-adjacent Amazon facilities mentioned above are not included in a recent map of the growing Amazon Air network of ‘air hubs’, many of which have direct access to the airfield. In contrast, these warehouses are land-based distribution hubs; positioning of the facilities takes advantage of airport proximity to major highways and interchanges along with the zoning of large areas of undeveloped land around airports for industrial development. The warehouses may well lead to an increase in air cargo as Amazon’s logistics network expands, but the emphasis is on surface transportation. All the Amazon warehouses are heralded by authorities and the mainstream media with claims of job creation. But much of the ‘new’ employment will displace jobs from elsewhere, from smaller-scale businesses that do not benefit from the tax breaks and other subsidies bestowed on Amazon. And tax breaks for Amazon are spiralling upwards. The Amazon Tracker, produced by Good Jobs First, tallies state and local economic susbidy deals given to Amazon throughout the USA. At the time of GAAM’s previous post about Amazon’s expanding footprint during the Covid-19 pandemic, in August 2020, subsidies granted to Amazon stood at $2,982,000,000. Just nine months later, in May 2021, this figure has increased by more than 25 per cent, to at least $4,092,000,000, and counting!
Amazon’s expansion of its e-commerce logistics network, giant distribution and fulfilment centres, continues during the Covid-19 pandemic. Several new facilities are airport-adjacent and many are supported by tax breaks.
Online buying has surged during the Covid-19 pandemic. Confinement of American citizens to their homes under ‘shelter in place’ orders and closure of shops selling non-essential goods have been a gift to e-commerce firms with extensive home delivery networks. E-commerce spending in the US surged by 78% in May, with Amazon, Target and Walmart reporting soaring online sales. Amazon, expanding its market share to nearly 40% of all online sales, has been the biggest winner. The first week of July 2020 marked the twelfth straight week of over 60% year-on-year growth of customer spending on Amazon. And Amazon is consolidating its distribution dominance by adding to its existing large facilities at airports, strategically located in proximity to fulfilment centres (warehouses for receiving and processing orders). A fleet of trucks, estimated to number over 20,000, delivers products and packages to urban centres.
Amazon’s surface shipping network is supported by Amazon Air (formerly known as Amazon Prime Air), a wholly owned subsidiary of the retail, e-commerce and logistics giant. Growth of Amazon Air is accelerating in 2020 and is a cornerstone of Amazon’s drive to challenge the dominance of FedEx, UPS and the United States Postal Service (USPS) in the overnight and 2-day home delivery market. Amazon’s fleet of cargo aircraft is anticipated to grow from 42 at present to 70 by 2021. A fleet of this size would place Amazon Air, its route network almost entirely within North America, among the world’s largest cargo airlines.
Amazon ‘super hub’ at CVG
A massive new air hub at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport (CVG) appears to be the lynchpin of Amazon’s expansion of domestic deliveries across the US. The new facility is expected to handle 200 flights per day, becoming Amazon Air’s ‘super hub’. Construction has caused problems for neighbouring homes and business premises. For more than a year vibrations from blasting works during construction caused damage to buildings along with uncontrolled dust and noise. Two affected residents filed a complaint seeking to allow residents living within 1 mile of the site to file a class action lawsuit against the contractors building the air hub. A construction worker, Loren Shoemake, was killed in a accident on the site. $40 million in state and local tax incentives and an additional $5 million from CVG Airport were given to Amazon to develop the air cargo hub at CVG and the State of Kentucky built a new interchange on the Interstate-275 highway to serve the development.
Amazon’s growth is partly due to its agressive stragetegy for getting tax breaks. Amazon Tracker, created by Good Jobs First, a non-profit organisation focusing on government and corporate accountability, tallies tax breaks and other subsidies given to Amazon for warehouses, other distribution network facilities and data centers. At the time of writing the total amounted to $2,982,000,000. Amazon facilites at airports benefitting from subsidies include hubs at Lakeland in Polk County, Florida and Will Rogers World Airport, Oklahoma, and distribution centres at Charlotte Douglas Airport in North Carolina and Romulus, Michigan.
Charlotte City Council approved $13.4 million in incentives to Amazon to bring an Amazon facility to Charlotte Douglas Airport. Opening in September 2019, the distribution centre has a footprint of 855,000 square feet, about the size of 15 football pitches. An identically sized Amazon fulfilment centre, on 84 acres of land in Romulus, north of Detroit Metropolitan Airport, was granted a $5 million state subsidy from the Michigan Strategic Fund in 2017. In addition $13.5 million of Michigan tax dollars was allocated for infrastructure around the site. The director of the Detroit Regional Aerotropolis Development Corporation said Amazon would attract other transportation and logistics firms to vacant property near the airport. Efforts to develop 6,000 acres of land within Detroit Regional Aerotropolis began in 2007 but never took off.
During 2020 Amazon has continued expansion of its surface shipping network, constructing and leasing massive warehouses across the US, in several instances supported by tax breaks and state funding for associated road infrastructure. In June 2020 the town of North Andover, Massachusetts, approved an estimated $27 million in tax incentives to Amazon for a massive 3.8 million square feet, five-storey high distribution centre. A tax increment finance agreement will reduce Amazon’s property tax bill for a decade. The amount is almost equal to the combined total of tax breaks previously granted to the company for other facilities in Massachusetts in the past few years: $16 million in state and local tax incentives for a large distribution centre in Fall River, an estimated $3.5 million for a sortation centre in Stoughton and up to $10 million in property tax breaks from the city of Boston for new offices in the Seaport District. The 110 acre North Andover site, formerly an industrial complex, is adjacent to Lawrence Municipal Airport with easy access to two interstate highways, the I-495 partial beltway around Boston and the I-93 arterial road extending from southwest Boston to St. Johnsbury, Vermont.
Site of new Amazon distribution centre in North Andover, Massachusetts
Over in Ohio construction of an Amazon fulfilment centre with a 2.8 million square feet footprint in Rossford, Wood County, was nearing completion by the end of June 2020. Interior works on robotics and HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) were underway and the scope of the project had expanded; 300 parking spaces for tractor-trailers in initial designs had increased to 719. Also in Ohio, state funding for a road project in Etna Township, Licking County is related to an Amazon building. One of the biggest speculative developments in the country, the footprint is reportedly 1.2 million square feet. The 15th June 2020 meeting of the Ohio Controlling Board approved release of $800,000 in support of the Amazon project, to extend a road “needed for basic access to the facility.” The 85 jobs that will be created by the road project come at the expense of a hefty subsidy: $9,411 per job. State largesse for Amazon was the polar opposite of swingeing $850,000 cuts to the nearby Southwest Licking School District, part of statewide budget cuts announced in May.
Map showing site of Amazon speculative building in Etna Township and road funded by Ohio Controlling Board. Source: Newark Advocate, 11th June 2020
More Amazon facilities in California
Imminent opening of a large new Amazon distribution centre at Meadows Field Airport in Kern County, California – a four floor facility with a footprint measuring 640,000 square feet – was announced in June 2020. Kern County agreed to give Amazon $3 million in local tax rebates in 2018, a subsidy package that would award the company annual refunds of approximately $275,000 for more than a decade.
Speculation that Amazon is developing a western hub at San Bernardino Airport was confimed on 8th May 2020 when the tenant of a major new air cargo facility was announced and the project named Amazon Air Regional Air Hub. Up until this point the tenant of what had previously been called the Eastgate Air Cargo Facility had not been disclosed. Amazon has already built 14 giant fulfilment centres in the San Bernardino and Riverside communities, known as the Inland Empire and one of the biggest hubs for goods warehousing and distribution in the US. High levels of air pollution from logistics traffic is compounded by geography; the area sits in a valley between two mountain ranges, forming a bowl trapping pollutants and emissions drift inland from Los Angeles. Several studies link poor air quality to health problems.
Eastgate Air Cargo Facility site plan showing distribution and office building, aircraft parking areas, dock doors, parking and operational support areas. Source: Environmental Science Associates, Inc., July 2019
More air cargo flights at San Bernardino Airport will bring more trucks, more traffic and more pollution. Specifications for the air cargo facility include two new driveways into the site with two new bridges crossing the City Creek Bypass Channel. Hundreds of local residents attended meetings to raise concerns over pollution from air cargo flights at the new San Bernardino Airport facililty and the projected 1,568 diesel-fuelled truck trips per day. A coalition of residents, community organisations, labour unions and churches united under the San Bernardino Airport Communities banner to push for good jobs during construction and operation and protection from air pollution, noise and road traffic impacts.
Two local community groups in Sonoma, Northern California, called for public input on a proposal to lease a vast warehouse to Amazon for its North Bay delivery hub project, questioning whether the turning the space into a major regional delivery centre violates the terms of the permit for the building. The property is zoned for light manufacturing, research and development, warehousing and distribution or retail/office use. Norman Gilroy of Mobilize Sonoma and Kathy Pons of the Valley of the Moon Alliance raised concerns that operation of a major regional delivery centre will increase intensity of the building’s use, without planning review or public comment, enquiring about the number of vehicles that will enter and leave the building on a typical day. The facility is anticipated to open in the autumn. In June 2020 neighbouring residents, concerned when they noticed a large crane at work, alerted county officials. An inspector verified that no permit for the work existed, leading to issuance of a ‘stop work’ order and a fine.
Houston, Florida, New York, Connecticut
Construction of a massive Amazon warehouse just southwest of Houston began in June 2020. The new fulfilment centre, on a 93.5 acre site, will have an 855,000 square feet footprint. Amazon built its first facility in the area, in north Houston, a few years ago, receiving a 10-year tax break from Harris County that was expected to save the company $180,000 annually. Elsewhere in the Houston area Amazon also has a fulfilment centre in Brookshire and a sorting facility near George Bush Intercontinental Airport. In central Florida the aforementioned Amazon air cargo hub at Lakeland Linder Airport is taking shape, a 300,000 square foot, three storey building taking up 47 acres of airport land. Then in July Amazon secured approval to build what might be its largest distribution facility in South Florida, near the Homestead Air Reserve Base in south Miami-Dade.
Site of new Amazon distribution centre in Miami-Dade
In New York, work on Amazon’s 450,000 square foot last mile facility in Bloomfield, Staten Island was deemed essential construction during the Covid-19 pandemic. Amazon already has a facility in Staten Island, an 855,000 square foot distribution centre opened on the West Shore in 2017. On 23rd June Amazon inked an agreement to lease space for an even bigger facility in Queens. A disused containerboard factory will be demolished and replaced with a massive 1 million square foot four-storey warehouse which will be the largest in New York City. Simultaneously, steel girders were being erected for an Amazon distribution centre in Clay, a town in Onondaga, a northern suburb of Syracuse. Upon completion, scheduled for autumn 2021 in time for Christmas deliveries, the five-storey, 3.8 million square foot facility will, in term of floorspace, be one of the largest in the world. Jobs will be created, but mainly for robots. Employing just 1,000 people it will be one of Amazon’s most automated sites. Little remains of the golf course that previously occupied the site, for 73 years. Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency approved $70.8 million in tax breaks for this Amazon distribution centre project.
On 26th May 2020 a second Amazon warehouse/distribution centre in Windsor, Connecticut received local land use approvals. The 147 acre hub will be built on former tobacco farmland. Amazon, aiming to start construction in the third quarter of 2020, sought multi-year tax breaks for the development. Windsor’s economic development commission obliged, recommending approval of a seven-year 100% cent tax abatement. The site is on the Bradley Airport Connector highway connecting Bradley Airport with Interstate-91, the major north–south transportation corridor in central Connecticut.
Map showing site of new Amazon warehouse in Windsor, Connecticut, next to Bradley International Airport and connector highway
The tax breaks for the new Amazon facility, approved by Windor town council, were more modest than had been suggested: a three-year 50% abatement of real property taxes plus a 50% reduction in building permit fees. Amazon is projected to net savings of $8.78 million from the deal. Good Jobs First expressed its opinion on granting tax incentives to Amazon in a tweet:
Town gives $8.8 million in incentives to #Amazon, which had already started construction on the fulfillment center being subsidized. It's economic development malpractice to subsidize a project you've already landed. https://t.co/2xGkARQ6A0
On 22nd June Amazon decided to open two distribution centres in the south suburbs of Chicago, in Matteson and Markham, each measuring 855,000 square feet and anticipated to employ 1,000 people. The low employment density ratio is partly due to automation; the facilities will use ‘the newest generation of Amazon robots’ to pick, pack and ship goods. Several officials said Amazons’ decision to locate the warehouses in Matteson and Markham strengthened the case for proceeding with the long proposed south suburban airport in Peotone, as an air cargo hub. The new Amazon facilities are within a few miles of the airport project site. Government funding for road construction linking to the airport site is already allocated: more than $205 million from the Rebuild Illinois infrastructure plan for construction of Interstate 57 (I-57) related to the airport property. David Greising, president and Chief Executive of the Better Government Association, wrote that area would be better served with road and bridge upgrades serving rail and trucking routes than by ‘sinking $205 million into an “airport to nowhere” off I-57 toward Peotone’.
A third major Chicago region airport, on farmland in Peotone, has been proposed since the 1980s. Illinois Department of Transportation started buying land surrounding the site in 2002, amassing 5,000 acres of the proposed 6,000 acres for the ‘inaugural footprint’ for the airport. Farmer Judy Ogalla, who owns land in the proposed airport site where she grows corn, soybeans and wheat, said “We have great soil…It doesn’t have any sense to pave over that when we have an airport in Gary.” Kevin Brubaker of the Environmental Law and Policy Center said construction of the airport would destroy 1,200 acres of flood plains and 180 acres of wetlands. Opposition to Peotone airport has been sustained by Shut This Airport Nightmare Down, a group composed of environmentalists, farmers and other residents.
Amazon’s cloud cluster, data centres housed in another set of ubiquitous grey warehouses, casts an ever heavier earthly footprint. Already Amazon operates more than 50 data centres in Loudoun County, Northern Virginia, the largest single concentration of corporate data centres on the planet. Amazon seeks to expand this by building a massive, 2.5 million square feet, data centre campus south of Dulles Airport. This is one of five potential Amazon data centre projects being developed as the cloud cluster becomes a ‘cloud corridor’. Amazon and its development partners have been land banking, buying parcels of land for future development, adjcacent to Dulles Airport. Some Loudoun County community members are critical of data centre design and location. Over 100 data centres lining major roads dominate the visual landscape and lead to tensions over noise in residential neighbourhoods.
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