Mystery Company Could Bring 450 Jobs to Londonderry

A major distribution facility is looking to build on Pettengill Road – but at this point the name of the company remains a mystery.

The realty firm and builders who will be working with the company came before the Planning Board last week for a conceptual discussion about the facility. 

The building was described by Town Council Planning Board liaison Tom Freda this week as "a very large one," with a parking lot for a projected 450 employees.

No plans have been filed yet, but representatives for the mystery firm told the Planning Board the building, located at 61 and 63 Pettengill Road, would be a one-story facility, with about 200,000 square feet of space.

The building would be located in the northwest corner of Londonderry just south of Manchester-Boston Regional Airport, on 30 acres of land owned by Ballinger Properties and Associates. The property is abutted by undeveloped land.

The property is a former gravel pit that has been mined over the years but has now been mostly cleared. In order to access the property, a 700-foot public road would have to be built, coming down from the intersection of Industrial Drive and Pettengill Road.

There would be a small office component, but the majority of the building would be used for distribution and warehousing. Tractor trailers would be bringing in "parcels" between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. that would then be sorted from 4 a.m. to 8 a.m. inside the facility. Drivers would then arrive, go inside and pick up the loaded vans and make their destination routes, departing between 7 and 8 a.m. and returning between 4 and 5 p.m. So during regular business hours, there would be very little going on. There would also be an evening parcel sort between 7 and 11 p.m., with tractor trailers departing around 11 p.m. for destinations around the country.

The goal is to permit and design the project by late summer, early fall and break ground sometime in 2013. The scheduled opening date is October of 2014.