Amazon Will Build Warehouse At North Andover's Osgood Landing

NORTH ANDOVER, MA — Retail giant Amazon will build a warehouse that could employ as many as 1,500 people at the former Osgood Landing site in North Andover. Former North Andover Town Manager Andrew Maylor, who left the position earlier this year to become the state Comptroller, confirmed the news in a post on Twitter Tuesday night. Speculation about who would occupy the site had been rampant after Hillwood Inc. met with North Andover selectmen last month about the possibility of developing the Osgood Landing site for an undisclosed partner.

When Amazon held a national competition for its second headquarters beginning in 2017, the Osgood site was a centerpiece of a proposal submitted by a consortium of Merrimack Valley communities. At the time, the proposal was seen as a long shot bid as the proposal competed with scores of proposals from around the country, including one from Boston. Amazon eventually decided to split the new headquarters between New York City and Virginia, then scrapped the plan for New York.

Hillwood has been retained by Amazon to develop 30 such sites for the online retailer around the country as it looks to increase its distribution network. The company is pushing to offer more same-day delivery options and become less reliant on third-party shipping companies like UPS and the U.S. Postal Service.

While the 1,500 jobs coming with the facility pales in comparison to the 50,000 a second headquarters would have brought, Hillwood said those jobs will have starting salaries of $15 per hour when company officials met with selectmen.

The move also ends the long saga of efforts to find a long-term, stable anchor for 1600 Osgood. North Andover has been looking for a tenant for the massive property since Lucent scaled back operations at the facility in 2003. At its peak, 12,000 people worked there. The site had also been eyed as a possible site for a cannabis farm as the state continues its move to legalized, recreational marijuana and retail cannabis sales.

Under the proposal presented to selectmen, which would need Town Meeting approval, Hillwood would purchase and demolish most of the existing buildings on the property and build a new warehouse facility for its client. Selectmen will likely call a special town meeting for sometime this summer to consider the zoning changes that would be needed for the project to move forward.

Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).