BY BEN VERDE
Fears of an impending invasion
of trucks are picking up
speed in Red Hook, as Amazon
plans yet another “last-mile”
distribution center in the waterfront
neighborhood.
The online shopping giant
has inked a lease for 311,796
square feet at 280 Richards St.,
a property owned by Thor Equities
marketed as Red Hoek
Point, and expects to occupy
the space next year, according
to Commercial Observer.
The industrial space is
expected to be used by the
e-commerce behemoth as a
“last-mile distribution center”
— a type of warehouse made
evermore necessary by the
online shopping boom, where
smaller vehicles are loaded
with merchandise to be delivered
directly to consumers on
city streets.
A number of other last-mile
warehouses from other companies
Brooklyn
Heights
Gowanus
Red Hook
COURIER L 6 IFE, NOV. 13-19, 2020
are also in the works in
Red Hook, including nearby at
537-555 Columbia St., 640 Columbia
St., and an enormous
United Parcel Service facility
adjacent to Valentino Pier.
Plans for the Amazon facility
come as Red Hook residents
are pushing to change
the truck routes through the
neighborhood, which currently
sends 18-wheelers barreling
down Red Hook’s commercial
corridor on Van
Brunt Street, as well as past
the neighborhood’s largest
park on Beard Street.
The new warehouses
could increase the number of
trucks on Red Hook’s streets
by unsustainable amounts,
according to locals, who
fear the lasting effects on
the mixed-use neighborhood
could be devastating.
“They are going to crush
us,” said Jim Tampakis, a
manufacturer of ship parts in
Red Hook who has been at the
forefront of organizing around
the facilities.
Tampakis has researched
other last-mile facilities
across the city — including
Amazon sites in Queens, the
Bronx, and Staten Island,
most of which were smaller
than the coming Richards
Street site — and found an average
of one vehicle per minute
leaving the facilities.
Neighborhood organizers
have fl oated a number of other
potential solutions to prevent
an onslaught of box trucks and
sprinter vans on the streets
— including mandating that
warehouses with waterfront
property receive shipments by
water, and rewriting the area’s
truck route to bring larger vehicles
through the Red Hook
Container Terminal instead
of local roads.
But, so far, no action has
been taken, and Amazon,
Red Hoek Point, where Amazon has leased space for a last-mile distribution
warehouse. Thor Equities
whose new facilities are being
built as-of-right, could
move into the Red Hook space
as early as 2021.
In the meantime, local civic
groups like Community Board
6 have pushed the Department
of Transportation to conduct
a truck study, but citywide
budget cuts and the amount of
time such a review would take
are leaving locals weary.
“At the end of the day we’re
talking about 2 million square
feet of distribution places here,
and we’re not used to having
that kind of volume of traffi c
coming in,” said Tampakis.
Amazon, which is also
planning a new East New York
facility, declined to comment
on how they would be using
the Red Hook space.
“Amazon is a dynamic
business and we are constantly
exploring new locations,”
said a company spokesperson.
“However we have a
policy of not commenting on
our future roadmap.”
TRUCK-POCALYPSE!
Amazon leases Red Hook warehouse as
fears of unsustainable truck traffic rise
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