The developer of a proposed Amazon distribution facility at Gabreski Airport in Westhampton Beach, a depot that will enable the online retail giant to more quickly deliver packages to East End residents, won $2.3 million in tax breaks from the Suffolk County Industrial Development Agency last month.
The nearly $36 million project includes the construction of an approximately 91,000-square-foot building on more than 50 acres of county-owned land in the airport's Hamptons Business District industrial park.
The project is expected to create between 90 and 100 construction jobs, according to the county. The warehouse will hire 50 employees at an average annual salary of a little more than $34,000 in the first two years of operation.
The developers, Rechler Equity Partners, "own and lease more than six million square feet of technology, industrial, and office space" on Long Island, Guy Germano, a lawyer for the firm, said in a letter submitted with the application to the I.D.A. The developers will finance the bulk of the project, and Amazon would pay for the installation of a $7.5 million conveyor system.
Development of the facility was first proposed in 2009, and the county got involved in negotiations in 2014, Anthony Catapano, executive director of the development agency, said at a public hearing on Nov. 10. Only one member of the public, Matthew Aracich, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Nassau and Suffolk Counties, weighed in on the proposal. "We're behind this project 100 percent," he said.
The I.D.A. approved the tax breaks at a Nov. 19 meeting, at which Mr. Catapano said he had received an email from a Westhampton Beach resident who was concerned about potential airplane noise created by the facility. Mr. Catapano said Amazon would use only ground transportation to deliver the packages.
