An intensive warehouse development could find a home on Route 208 in the Town of Montgomery.

The project, which is within the commercial zoning district, is a 146,000 square foot building on 13.59 acres. It’s across from Walgreens and is projected to have 36 loading docks and 60 trailer storage spaces. No variances are sought for this application.

Connor McCormack with Colliers Engineering, Engineer for the project, gave an overview of the project a month ago.

“The site is located at the district side of the intersection of Hawkins Drive and Route 208. There’s currently an existing signalized intersection at a driveway that’s serving the Walgreens property. We’re proposing to connect our site to that existing driveway,” McCormack stated. “The proposed development was anticipated to have 252 employees that will work in three separate shifts and 48 employees each. That employee capital requires 3780 gallons per day [and] the site is in the Water and Sewer District.”

The first public hearing for the project was held on May 30.

Conor Eckert, Senior Development Officer and Vice president of Business Attraction for Orange County Partnership, stated his support for the project.

“I’m here to speak in favor of this project. Fundamentally from a location perspective, the land uses are compatible,” Eckert said. “It’s close to the highway but from an economic development perspective these 140 to 150 (sf) size ranges are in high demand right now, and there are not many areas in the county that have 150,000 square feet ready or close to being approved in the approval process.”

Director of Business Development at Holt Construction and Board Member at the Construction Contractors Association and Orange County Partnership Daniel Depew also stated support. “This project is significant for a couple of reasons; one, it kind of takes the guidance of the pause that the Town of Montgomery took to rework its zoning in regard to warehousing and this project is very fitting with that. It doesn’t offset that area very much, it falls in with the zoning and the space around it, and it’s kind of tucked away. If you know where this is, it’s up and behind. I don’t think it’s going to change much of the look,” Depew stated.

Frederick Gorss, Town of Montgomery Justice, also spoke up, stating that he had some unresolved issues with the property. “I know there are sections in your Zoning Law to alleviate traffic on a highway. In this case [it’s] Route 208, and to use the traffic light so that traffic can be alleviated on that roadway, as you all know, helping residents to get out of Dunkin Donuts and so forth,” said Gorss, who also attended the meeting Monday, July 31. He mentioned his issues were resolved there.

After the first public hearing, the planning board decided to wait to hear from the county and Department of Transportation on issues like traffic, their intersection, signage and more. They held the public hearing open until July 31 where they reconvened.

Here, Eckert spoke again declaring his support, and Gorss spoke to let them know that his issues were mostly cleared.

There was no other public comment, just some discussion from the board on signage and final review. Chairman Fred Reichle stated that they have their consultant’s final comments on the latest plan, and that now they just have to get their reviews done. After that, they passed a motion to close the public hearing.