Amazon Consolidates Bensalem Warehouse Property

BENSALEM TOWNSHIP, PA —Amazon recently visited Bensalem Township Council, but it wasn't to discuss the vacant Amazon Fresh Store property.

Attorney Amee Farrell of Kaplin Stewart appeared before the township council at its recent meeting to request that parcels on Amazon's Winks Lane and State Road property be under one umbrella.

Farrell asked for an amendment of a 1954 township zoning ordinance of its 3750 State Road property for five small residential parcels that were leveled to be rezoned from institutional to general industrial along with a lot line change.

"This is a property that everyone is familiar with," Farrell said. "We're really close."

"No, we're not. We'll never be to the end of this project," Council President Edward Kisselback said.

Amazon had acquired the five residential properties as part of its August 2021 agreement with the township for the warehouse.

"We no longer have five residences with an Amazon warehouse in their backyard," Township Solicitor Joseph Pizzo said.

After the properties were rezoned, the council also approved a lot line change that basically consolidated the five parcels with the three on the Amazon site to make it one parcel.

The council unanimously approved both requests.

In September 2020, Amazon received approval from the council for a 235,240-square-foot warehouse that would serve as a fulfillment center, which is where merchandise is stored and deliveries begin.

At the time, the warehouse was part of an expansion plan by Amazon which it said it wanted to speed up deliveries.

But Amazon's plans to expand into Bensalem with an Amazon Fresh storehave stalled.

For more than six months now, the Amazon Fresh store at 1837 Street Road has sat empty.

The Amazon Fresh store —like others in Lower Bucks and nearby Montgomery County —was supposed to open in the space where Kmart once ruled on Street Road sometime last year.

But a proposed November opening came and went even though township officials said construction had been completed and the site had shopping cart stalls and other markings of an Amazon Fresh store ready to go.

Amazon Fresh spokeswoman Kim Kornfeld has told Patch that Amazon does "not comment on our future roadmap."