Milford Slows Developer's Plan To Add Amazon Van Parking

MILFORD, MA- A local developer's plan to add more parking spaces for Amazon vans in the Quarry Square Shopping Center hit a speed bump when it was brought to the town planning board on Tuesday.

A representative for Quarry Square Realty Trust came to the board for approval on a plan to pave and stripe about 137 new spaces. Plaza owner Fafard Real Estate lost many of the big box stores that were nestled on the strip to the Milford Crossing Plaza last year. The increase in space allowed the developer to lease about 500 parking spaces to Amazon subcontractors this past summer.

The board requested a traffic study before approving the plan. Several members raised concerns about traffic jams in the area.

"Industrial Drive in the morning is barely passable because they are jammed from Birch Street going all the way up to Industrial Drive," Planning Board member Patrick Kennelly said.

Planning Board member Lena McCarthy also brought up the issue of enforcing the designated spots to amazon drivers. "It seems to me that the drivers are parking anywhere they wanna park. I see them all over the place," she said.

Planning Board Chairman Joseph Calagione brought up the traffic study as a means of gathering more information on the already tense issue. "Clearly if we have a problem with the traffic we don't have enough information to be able to go forward with it. I think that as of right now, it's already bad, and we're going to be approving more, then I think we certainly have the right to ask the applicant to provide us with a traffic study that addresses the current use, not the former use as a shopping center," he said.

The board voted in favor of a traffic study 3-1 with Kennelly being the only vote opposed.

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