A major retailer, presumably Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), will not build a massive fulfillment center at Westphalia Town Center, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks announced Friday.
“Earlier today I was informed by the company that planned to build a fulfillment center at the Westphalia Town Center that they would no longer be pursuing that site,” Alsobrooks said in a statement. “It is our intention to work with the company to identify more suitable locations in the county where they may be able to bring their products.”
The fulfillment center had been approved by both the Prince George’s County Council and the Prince George’s Planning Board. The plans called for an 85-foot-tall, five-story building with an 818,423-square-foot footprint, creating a center of roughly 4 million gross square feet. The 79-acre project was to include ground-floor office, 1,794 vehicle parking spaces and 267 loading spaces — 64 with docks — plus a water tank and two guardhouses.
Duke Realty Corp. (NYSE: DRE) was under contract to acquire the site from Westphalia’s master developer. Amazon is Duke’s top tenant.
The facility was expected to employ at least 1,500. But many residents of Westphalia opposed the center, not only for the scale of the project and the noise and truck traffic they believed would come as a result, but also because they say they were promised a retail-based town center when they bought their homes there, not a 24-hour distribution center.