The Jerome Township Board of Zoning Appeals has approved plans for a proposed FedEx trucking distribution center. The multiple-building facility is planned for a 99-acre site at 8341 Industrial Parkway.
(Graphic submitted)
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The Jerome Township Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA) has approved a pair of requests, paving the way for a controversial shipping hub in the community.
At a recent meeting, the BZA approved a proposed trucking distribution center as a conditional use within the township’s commerce zoning and approved a variance for the height of a sound barrier wall on the site.
Sun Capital has filed the application, though documents in the file confirm the user will be FedEx Ground.
The ground distribution site is planned for a 99-acre site at 8341 Industrial Parkway in Jerome Township. W&D Thomas Family, LLC., owns the property, which currently holds a single family home and a vacant farm.
Officials expect the developer to invest more than $50 million dollars into the regional facility that will create about 250 jobs, many of them for drivers, but with about 50 to 75 working in the building.
The application indicates the main building will initially be about 488,000 square feet with an additional 42,000 square feet of buildings planned.
Jerome Township Zoning Inspector Mark Spagnuolo said the developers submitted a traffic study as well as an acoustical analysis and a light study.
According to the submitted traffic study, during the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, there would be nearly 2,300 vehicles using the facility daily. The majority of truck traffic would be between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m.
Officials said the rest of the year would be about 70 percent of the holiday.
The developer has agreed to make improvements to Industrial Parkway, creating turn lanes from both north and south bound lanes and installing a traffic light on the south driveway into their facility. Additionally, the developer has said they would be willing to contribute to additional improvements needed at several other intersections.
“They provided solutions for all the potential problems,” Spagnuolo said. “I am not sure what else they could have done. They went well above and beyond what they needed.”
Even so, not everyone is pleased.
“I am at a loss to understand how, with so much of evidence/information which could cause harm to the community available in the application itself, and with so much of adverse opinions by all the residents and other businesses at the long hearing for the application, that the BZA found it acceptable to approve the application,” resident Venkat Punugu wrote in an e-mail to the Journal-Tribune. “The facility is totally disruptive and detrimental to the most important part – the community where it is proposed to be built.”
Residents have complained the facility would increase traffic on Industrial Parkway as well as surrounding roads causing delays and damaging the infrastructure.
“Those of us that will need to make a left turn onto Industrial Parkway from our driveways will have a long wait to think about how the township has let us down,” said resident Barry Adler. “It makes me sad to think of the accidents and injuries that might be avoided, if we were only smart enough to allow roadway infrastructure to move forward before the traffic overwhelms us.”
Opponents have also said the site will create noise and light pollution and is inconsistent with the character of Industrial Parkway and Jerome Township. The application calls for the main building to be set at least 640 feet from the road with three layers of landscaping and buffering.
Spagnuolo argued the township needs a place for facilities like the distribution center and, “the commercial district beats any other option.”
Despite the concern of residents, the project is free to move forward, the zoning inspector said.
“It’s done,” Spagnuolo said.
He explained that BZA decisions, because they are judicial and not legislative, it is not subject to a possible referendum. He added that the matter does not need to come in front of the township trustees for approval.
“The BZA is its own entity, completely separate from the board of trustees and the board of trustees does not get involved in any issues that come before BZA,” Spagnuolo said.