Erik Chalhoub here. I’ve written plenty of times in this space about mountain biking at Fort Ord National Monument—I find inspiration for so many story ideas while out on the trails. During breaks, I like to look out in the distance to see what landmarks I can recognize on the Monterey Peninsula and Salinas Valley.
From many lookout points, I can see Joby Aviation’s massive presence at the Marina Municipal Airport—which I was able to tour in 2025—and over the past year, a new, even larger structure has risen to the east: Amazon’s Salinas facility. By construction standards, the structure was built at a breakneck pace, speaking to the power of big money behind the project.
That view from Fort Ord, and Salinas Mayor Dennis Donohue’s proclamation of Salinas as the southern edge of Silicon Valley, formed the basis for this week’s cover story on Amazon arriving in Monterey County.
The Weekly has written many stories about the facility in the past, so one of my goals with this cover story was to create a comprehensive history of the project. That included filing multiple California Public Records Act requests with the City of Salinas for communications between city officials and Scannell Properties, the developer behind the project, as well as info on what, if any, funding agreements Salinas entered into.
It resulted in hours of combing through countless innocuous emails (there have been many Zoom meetings between the city and Amazon over the past three years) to find information readers may be interested in. My reporting also uncovered a court case against the city and Scannell that managed to go relatively unnoticed by the general public.
But what the public is most aware of is the inevitable increase in traffic in the already high-traveled area around the facility. My article paints a picture of what is being done behind the scenes to hopefully alleviate those concerns.
Check out the cover story to learn what that big box next to Highway 101 may bring to Salinas and Monterey County as a whole.
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