Though undisclosed, signs point to Amazon as future tenant of new development near Sandpoint Airport

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

A proposed industrial development at Great Northern Road and Woodland Drive has raised concerns for at least one neighbor that Amazon could be considering locating a logistics or distribution center on the almost eight-acre site formerly owned by Litehouse.

According to documents filed with the city, the approximate 26,000-square-foot light-industrial facility would be located on the northwest corner of the property not far from the Sandpoint Airport, with 154 parking spaces — the majority being for a combination of 24-foot-by-11-foot vans, queuing spots and docking.

Dubbed “Great Northern Project Bulldog” on the city’s planning and development page, the applicant is Indianapolis-based construction contractor Ambrose Property Group, which has built more than $1 billion worth of projects across the country. 

The company focuses on large-scale business centers, including numerous Amazon fulfillment centers and delivery stations, with the nearest to Sandpoint being the Amazon Global specialty fulfillment delivery stations in Pasco and Wenatchee, Wash., totaling  85,900 square feet and 43,700 square feet, respectively.

Amazon is only directly identified in the site plan documents’ general notes. However, those references were redacted by the applicant, but a text keyword search of the PDF returns 10 instances of “Amazon” in relation to signage on the site.

In addition, a neighbor of the proposed facility — who received a Dec. 5 notice of the comment period on the application, which ends Thursday, Dec. 19 — took the liberty of removing the black redaction bars on the Project Bulldog site plan documents and revealed references to signage “set in Amazon Ember” font style, in addition to general “Amazon signage.”

Resident Rory O’Rorke shared the unredacted documents with the Reader, in addition to his email correspondence with city staff, in which he wrote: “This will absolutely destroy my neighbourhood’s property prices, not to mention noise/light pollution plus traffic all day everyday. This is a horrendous decision, the worst possible outcome for anyone near this area.” 

Ambrose officials did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

Meanwhile, Sandpoint Mayor Jeremy Grimm declined in a Dec. 16 interview with the Reader to identify Amazon as the end user of the proposed facility, saying that he had “not seen any written documentation that it’s going to be an Amazon distribution center. It appears from the plans that I’ve seen that it’s a logistics and transportation facility.” 

The property in question, located at the intersection of Woodland Dr. and Great Northern Rd. Photo courtesy Google Maps.

As for the land use at the site — which is zoned for industrial use — “That wouldn’t be in conflict with a rural Amazon distribution center, but I have not seen anything that says ‘Amazon’ anywhere yet,” Grimm said.

“The applicant and the developers have not submitted any documents that are public records that disclose who the end user is,” Grimm said. “I believe they’re excited to do that, they’re just waiting for all the things to align. …

“A person could look at the building design plans and make some assumptions,” he added.

Sandpoint Planning and Community Development Director Jason Welker told the Reader that the application materials on the city’s projects webpage are what planners received from the applicant, and that city staff hadn’t redacted any portions of those documents.

What’s more, he said, “It’s not really the city’s concern who the applicant is representing or who the tenant of that space may be in the future; we’re just simply responsible for doing the review of that site plan to make sure that it conforms to city code. 

“We’re kind of agnostic as far as who the tenant’s going to be in the future,” he added. “We’re more concerned with the use and the compatibility with that zoning designation.”

Sandpoint City Planner Bill Dean told the Reader that withholding the identity of a future tenant or end user of a property isn’t unusual.

“It really depends on the client — it’s a good question. Some clients, for reasons that they don’t explain to city staff, desire to remain anonymous until a time of their choosing,” he said. “That’s a business decision that is really not associated with the land use permitting review process at all.”

Because the project fits under the zoning designation, and the applicant isn’t asking for any variances or other code changes, the project will move through the permitting process administratively — that is, it will not be required to go through a public hearing before the Planning and Zoning Commission or City Council.

“This is an industrially zoned parcel and ‘warehousing and distribution center’ is an allowed use in an industrial zone in Sandpoint. There’s no special permit needed,” Welker said. “The site plan review permit, which is what we’re going through right now, is why there’s a notice in the corner of the property and the neighbors were all mailed letters.”

Sandpoint P&Z Commission Chair John Hastings confirmed that he hadn’t heard anything about Project Bulldog from city planning staff, but that wouldn’t be out of the ordinary with a use that’s fully conforming to the zoning.

“It’s completely allowed. People are kind of surprised, you know — they see stuff going up and say, ‘How could you let that happen?’ but it’s like, well, ‘It was already zoned to do exactly what those people are doing with it,’” he told the Reader, also adding that it’s “not unusual at all” for permit application materials to leave off the name of the potential end user of a project.

While it remains unconfirmed by the applicant that Amazon may be planning a move into the Sandpoint area, rumors have circulated in other regional communities about smaller-scale Amazon warehouses and distribution centers coming to more rural areas — including near the Pullman-Moscow Regional Airport.

According to a report in August from the Spokesman-Review, Ambrose proposed “Project Cougar,” which is a 29,000-square-foot facility with expected 24-hour-per-day operations and requiring a “fleet of vehicles such as trucks and trailers.” 

That project, for which county officials granted a conditional use permit, did not name Amazon specifically, but news reports referred to Ambrose as the “Amazon-linked” developer, and site plans for both Project Cougar and Project Bulldog were prepared by the Bellevue, Wash. branch of Raleigh, N.C.-based consultancy firm Kimley-Horn and Associates, which is also serving Project Bulldog as its representative.

“Until there’s a building permit, I don’t know all the details,” Grimm told the Reader. “It’s my understanding that the [property] split has to occur for the end user to actually buy the property, and then this end user — it’s my understanding — moves very quickly and has tremendous resources.”

Following the closure of the comment period for adjacent property owners on Dec. 19, Dean said staff will make a decision on the site plan, after which there will be a 15-day appeal period.

“Any person can appeal a project; whether or not the appeal is upheld is a different story — that has to do with the merits of the appeal, versus the facts on the table, the findings that have to be made for the denial or approval of a project,” he said, later adding that a notice of the decision will go to neighbors along with their rights to appeal.

“It’s allowed by right in the code, and that’s why it’s an administrative approval,” Dean said.