Residents in towns and cities are rising up in opposition to a growing push to bring distribution centers closer to neighborhoods and areas unaccustomed to industrial traffic, an effort fueled by surging e-commerce demand that opponents of the warehouses claim brings noise, pollution, and heavy-duty trucks to local roads.
To combat a warehouse construction wave that is changing the distribution landscape in the United States, opponents of the distribution centers have gone from speaking out at local meetings and on Facebook to launching lawsuits and GoFundMe campaigns. According to real estate services firm Cushman & Wakefield, companies added more than 1.6 billion square feet of new industrial space across the country from 2017 to the end of the first quarter this year, in an unrelenting drive to get goods closer to customers amid a growing arms race among retailers to deliver orders faster.
Protests have come from communities outside of cities such as Pittsburgh and Madison, Wisconsin, as well as neighborhoods near expanding logistics zones in Southern California and eastern Pennsylvania.
"It would be really great if the state and the county, the companies and the communities could get into some kind of discussion to solve this problem, because we're under siege," said Anne Franke, a retiree opposing a development in Maxatawny, Pa., a rural community near Allentown, Pa., in a region densely populated with warehouse construction. "In Pennsylvania, our communities are under siege."
So far, efforts to halt warehouse construction have been largely unsuccessful, according to John Boyd, principal and founder of the Boyd Company Inc., a Boca Raton, Fla.-based site selection firm. However, he claims that they frequently complicate the planning process and increase the cost of developments, forcing companies to devote time and money to litigation and public relations efforts.
More than 300 people signed a Change.org petition opposing the construction of a 147,000-square-foot distribution center in Holbrook, New York, on Long Island. The developer of a 201,000-square-foot warehouse in Upland, Calif., in the Inland Empire region near the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, is fighting a community group over the project's environmental impact.
Even after a project dispute has been resolved, opponents can successfully lobby officials to impose new taxes or regulations on warehouses or to impose moratoriums on new construction, according to Mr. Boyd.
"Obviously, policymakers and public advocacy groups need to collaborate, and we need to accommodate our supply chain," he said, adding that the increase in e-commerce and demand for goods during the pandemic "didn't happen in a vacuum."
Because of the growing opposition, developers and logistics operators are increasingly turning to public relations firms to get ahead of the opposition by touting projects as job creators and boons to local economies, especially in an era of physical retail retrenchment.
According to Tom Ahern, a partner at the corporate public affairs firm Five Corners Strategies LLC in Wellesley Hills, Mass., the distribution centers are meeting demand in and around the communities.
Everyone enjoys seeing Amazon.com Inc. delivery vans "show up in their driveway the day after they ordered the new fishing reel or mitt for their son or daughter," he says. "However, everyone wants to make sure that the warehouse from which it's coming is only one town away."
According to Mr. Ahern, in a typical year, Five Corners may receive three or four requests for campaigns to support new logistics facilities. He stated that "the pedal has hit the floor" since mid-2021. According to him, the firm is already working on four campaigns this year, with requests for two more on the way.
According to Cushman & Wakefield, more than 568.2 million square feet of industrial property were under construction in the United States in the fourth quarter of 2021, up from 368.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2020 and 329.9 million in the same period of 2019.
Duke Realty Corp., a warehouse developer, has encountered opposition in Maxatawny, including a court battle over the township's approval of a large logistics park. According to the land-use decision appeal, the industrial operations would light up the night skies, alter "pristine" farmland views, and bring up to 924 tractor-trailer trips down the area's shoulderless two-lane roads every day.
"The issue is that they're now in the middle of the communities," Ms. Franke explained. "They're rewriting the neighborhood."
Duke's website describes the project as a "great opportunity" for e-commerce users, citing three-hour drives to New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. The company declined to comment on the news, citing ongoing litigation.
According to Chris Burns, Duke's executive vice president of real estate operations, finding space for the projects is becoming increasingly difficult.
"Larger facilities necessitate more land." "It would be next to impossible to find a site for 50 acres in the Inland Empire today," he said, referring to a region near the busy ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. "You'd have to travel quite far from the ports to do that."
The logistics space, according to Julia Somers, executive director of the New Jersey Highlands Coalition, a land conservation group, should be closer to highways "to ensure that they're using the infrastructure that's built for truck traffic."
The nonprofit is assisting in the funding of a lawsuit filed by residents of Phillipsburg, New Jersey, against their town council over a proposed 510,000-square-foot warehouse downtown, along the Delaware River about 70 miles west of New York City. According to the coalition, the project would degrade air quality and increase truck traffic.
Amazon canceled plans for a distribution center in Churchill, Pa., just outside Pittsburgh, last month, sparking outrage in the community. According to an Amazon spokesperson, the decision to cancel the Churchill project was "entirely a business decision and was not influenced by community factors."
Churchill Future, a Facebook group, had planned protests and raised more than $46,000 online to pay for a lawyer to assist with the opposition drive.
Cathy Bordner, a retiree who organized the anti-Amazon campaign, believes the online fulfillment centers have no place in the world.
"It's not just not in my backyard—not it's in anyone's backyard," said Ms. Bordner. Online ordering and delivery "is a wasteful business model, but the American public is addicted to it." I'm at the supermarket. Get in your car and drive to the store."