Is Amazon Fresh Still On Track To Open In Brookfield?

BROOKFIELD, CT — The large green and white sign above the empty storefront in Candlewood Plaza has been taken down, but does that mean Amazon Fresh is no longer on track to open up shop in Brookfield?

Greg Dembowski, Brookfield's economic development specialist, said he spoke with Amazon Fresh executives about six weeks ago, and had gotten no indication of any change regarding their plans to open in Candlewood Plaza.

But in an email to Patch, Dembowski also said he has "tried to reach them since but have not received a return phone call or message."

Amazon plays its expansion cards notoriously close to its corporate vest. Clues to the future tenant in the space most recently occupied by TJ Maxx at 14 Candlewood Lake Road began to trickle out only in the beginning of May 2022, when the company began posting job openings for Amazon Fresh workers in Brookfield online. Those listings are now gone.

There's been a shift in the retail giant's economic outlook since the company opened its first Amazon Fresh store, a 35,000-square-foot operation in a strip mall in Woodland Hills, CA, in 2017.

On a Feb. 2 earnings call, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the retail giant was "working really hard to streamline our costs and trying to do so at the same time that we don't give up on the long-term strategic investments that we believe can meaningfully change broad customer experiences and change Amazon over the long term."

The stock price lost almost half its value in 2022, closing out its slowest annual growth as a public company. Amazon announced it would "pause expansion of Fresh stores to examine the business and see if it resonates with customers," CNBC reported. Continued expansion would occur when the company was in a position "where we like the economics."