Roadwork is set to begin as Amazon prepares to build a warehouse in Salinas.

A construction fence surrounds a few bulldozers and concrete pipes on a formerly agricultural field in South Salinas. It’s the most visual representation to date of Amazon’s plans to move into Salinas, after years of starts and stops and closed-door conversations with city officials.

In late August, the City of Salinas published a notice on its website, advising the public that roadwork is scheduled to begin soon on Abbott Street and Harris Road, where Amazon proposes its distribution center. It was the first time the city publicly acknowledged Amazon by name, beyond emails and other correspondence found by the Weekly through Public Records Act requests.

In late 2021, Scannell Properties, which works with Amazon on similar projects, filed an application to the City of Salinas for a warehouse and distribution facility, standing five stories tall – up to 110 feet – and a little more than 3 million square feet, making it one of Amazon’s largest facilities in the world.

Plans call for the facility to be located on a portion of the Salinas Ag-Industrial Center, formerly an agricultural lot at the corner of Abbott Street and Harris Road.

In 2022, then-City Manager Steve Carrigan said the project was tabled indefinitely, citing rising construction costs as the developer’s reasoning.

However, in November 2023, the project was revived when Scannell purchased the property from Uni-Kool Partners for $14.7 million, County Assessor records show.

City records indicate the project is largely the same as when it was first proposed in 2021. According to its development application filed with the city, Amazon expects the facility, codenamed “Project GOAT,” to employ about 1,500 people. The distribution center is planned to have 60 loading docks, 318 trailer parking stalls and 1,103 parking spaces, with 258 delivery trucks expected to go in and out daily.

The developer has so far paid at least $2.5 million in permitting fees, with the permits currently under review. Scannell expects construction to begin in October and be complete in mid-2026, according to city records.

When the concept was adopted in 2010, the 257-acre Salinas Ag-Industrial Center was envisioned as an agricultural commerce area, where new and relocated ag businesses could expand their operations. However, it had not received any development applications until Scannell’s first submission in 2021.

In late 2021, the City of Salinas received a request from an attorney representing Scannell to eliminate the restriction that “wholesale distribution” uses on the property must be “agriculturally-related or serve the agriculture industry.” Carrigan agreed and struck the requirement, as is allowed under the specific plan.

“Since the specific plan was adopted in 2010, ‘Wholesale Distribution’ has significantly changed with the rise of e-commerce, globalization, and more recently challenges in the supply chain and labor shortages created by the pandemic,” he wrote in a 2021 letter. “The agriculture industry has also significantly changed since 2010, such that the original basis upon which the specific plan was originally adopted may no longer be relevant.”

Under the plan, Amazon, being the first to construct in the area, must build out the infrastructure – such as roads and utilities – which is estimated to cost more than $69 million, according to 2022 estimates by the city.

This includes widening Abbott Street and Harris Road, installing a ramp metering signal on southbound Highway 101 at the Abbott onramp, and converting the Highway 68 westbound ramps and Spreckels Boulevard intersection to an all-way stop.

The Salinas Valley Chamber of Commerce has questioned why the city had not publicly acknowledged the process until late August. In a letter to the Salinas City Council in July, Kevin Dayton, the chamber’s government affairs director, wrote that allowing “massive retail warehouse operations in Salinas will dramatically influence your community for future generations."

“You would act wisely and appropriately to serve as leaders and end the secrecy now,” he wrote.

Dayton says the chamber has not yet taken a position on the project, citing the need for more information. Warehouse logistics and distribution are not mentioned in the city’s general plan, he notes, adding that Amazon’s project doesn’t fit the original intent of the Salinas Ag-Industrial Center.

“This isn’t ag tech,” he says. “Everything that was planned and voted on by the city council was negated. It’s problematic.”

The chamber also wrote to the Transportation Agency for Monterey County, asking its board to discuss the traffic impacts of the project as TAMC moves forward on the US 101 South of Salinas Project. The project – developed independently of the Amazon proposal – plans to add a network of new frontage roads along Highway 101, as well as reconstruct the interchange at Abbott and upgrade the Chualar interchange, among other things. In 2023, an auxiliary lane was added on Highway 101 for vehicles entering from Spence Road.

TAMC Principal Engineer Doug Blise says the South of Salinas project is now undergoing environmental review, which is expected to take at least a couple of years. He adds the project is unrelated to Amazon’s plans.

“We are willing to work with the developer to help make their project as least impactful as possible,” he says.