Amazon considers putting up another local distribution facility 

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The Town of Gates may soon be home to a very large Amazon warehouse and distribution facility under a plan that comes up for a public hearing on Friday.

COMIDA, Monroe County’s industrial development agency, will meet Friday to listen to plans for a 2.6 million square foot facility that Amazon would like to put in at the Rochester Tech Park on Manitou Road.

The proposal calls for a facility that would create about a thousand positions and around 300 construction jobs, in a $412 million project.

That information is from an application to COMIDA asking for property and sales tax incentives. For its part, Amazon isn’t saying much right now, only that it is constantly exploring new locations.

The Town of Gates Supervisor, Cosmo Giunta, said that if this project does happen it would provide a nice economic boost for his town.

“Just think of the local revenue that it would bring, as far as sales tax revenue," he said. "That many people frequenting some of the businesses here; perhaps an increase in housing as well, but yeah, I think it would be pretty huge.”

And Giunta noted the addition of an Amazon facility would help to continue filling out the Tech Park, which years ago was the site of the former Kodak Elmgrove operation.

“The Tech Park over there, since Kodak left, initially was a big impact on the Gates community here," he said. "They’re about 95% complete right now, occupied, and this would kind of put the icing on the cake to be able to complete the other side of it too,” Giunta said.

Besides the tax incentives that are before COMIDA, various planning and zoning approvals would also be needed. Amazon already has a distribution center in Henrietta, and recently it was announced another Amazon distribution facility will be built in Greece at the Eastman Business Park.

Randy Gorbman is the news director at WXXI News, a media partner of CITY. He can be reached at [email protected].