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For one thing, they don’t want to have an experience with Amazon like the situation unfolding in Milford.
On Wednesday, Dec. 9, during a Planning Board meeting, residents voiced concerns about the project to demolish Greendale Mall and build an Amazon distribution center in its place.
In recent weeks, speculation had made its way across the city that plans submitted to Worcester for a large warehouse looked an awful lot like other schematics online retailer Amazon has submitted in cities and towns across the U.S.
The new Worcester distribution center would be about 121,000 square feet, which is smaller than the Neponset Street mall. It is expected to create 70 full-time jobs.
At the Planning Board meeting, Worcester residents voiced concerns about how an Amazon distribution center would impact local traffic and said they don’t trust Amazon’s data on the potential effect more delivery vehicles would have on the city, according to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
Residents also expressed concern about Amazon’s labor practices and alleged union-busting as well as the relationship they're seeing between Amazon and nearby Milford.
Milford ushered in an Amazon distribution center a few years ago and traffic problems surfaced soon after. In Milford, residents and civic leaders have complained about unsafe driving conditions allegedly caused by a mass of Amazon delivery drivers clogging intersections and pulling over on roadsides making passing the vans difficult, according to the Milford Daily News.
A lawyer representing distribution center developer Finard Properties reminded the Planning Board of its limited scope in approving the submitted plans and that the mega online retailer’s business practices have nothing to do with approving warehouse construction.
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