Amazon withdraws from ‘last mile’ plan in Sonoma

Online retail giant Amazon is withdrawing from plans to operate a “last mile” delivery center in Sonoma Valley .

The company had been working with the owner of a property at 22810 Eighth St. E. in Schellville, which was proposed to serve as a package delivery hub with 87 employees, 87 van delivery drivers, 24 flex delivery drivers and seven large-haul trucks, according to its most recent application to the county permitting office, Permit Sonoma.

The property boasts a 250,000-square-foot facility, dubbed Victory Station, which would’ve served as Amazon’s final way station for packages before they head by van to destination addresses. Construction on the $32 million site was completed in 2018 and owner Jose McNeill has been trying to secure a use permit to run shipping and storage operations since.

But in March, county permit officials rejected McNeill’s latest proposal – scaled down from its original 136 onsite employees and 151 van drivers and 14 large-haul trucks – calling for more information on the traffic and environmental impacts of the planned delivery hub. It was the third time the application had been kicked back to the applicant due to insufficient information.

This week, Blake Hillegas, Permit Sonoma’s supervising planner for the project, said that McNeill had informed the agency that Amazon was no longer interested in leasing the site.

McNeill said Amazon’s withdrawal from the project is down to the delays in the permitting process. “They withdrew (due to the slow) progress from the County of Sonoma in getting permits,” McNeill told the Index-Tribune.

McNeill said, while he no longer plans to pursue the conditional-use permit he was seeking when Amazon was involved, he still hopes to find a tenant to operate the site under its existing permit as a distribution warehouse.

Uncertainty over permitting wasn’t the only hurdle the Amazon project has faced. Two community watchdog groups, the Valley of the Moon Alliance and Mobilize Sonoma, emerged as vocal opponents of such a last-mile delivery hub headquartered in Schellville, demanding thorough review under the state Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). In a joint letter to Permit Sonoma, issued just prior to the agency rejecting McNeill’s most recent application, Kathy Pons of Valley of the Moon Alliance, and Norman Gilroy, of Mobilize Sonoma questioned the “integrity” of Amazon and McNeill in how the application accounted for the project’s estimated greenhouse gas emissions.

“It would be hard to conceive of a situation in which Permit Sonoma could rationally conclude that… the fully loaded 60-plus heavy duty vans this project will send out through the streets of Sonoma Valley, seven days a week, 365 days a year, will not have an impact on the environment worthy of analysis under CEQA,” wrote Gilroy and Pons.

Gilroy this week said Amazon’s decision to withdraw is “a piece of news a lot of people in the Sonoma Valley will be pleased to hear.”

Count Sonoma Mayor Jack Ding among them. While the Sonoma City Council has no official say in the county’s permitting decisions regarding Victory Station, which is located outside the city limits, Ding has followed the proposal closely ever since he reviewed the nascent project years prior as a member of the Sonoma Valley Citizens Advisory Commission.

While Ding said he supports bringing job opportunities to the Valley, specifically for “young people,” he also has traffic and environmental concerns about Victory Station serving as a busy van-delivery hub.

“It (would have been) a good project for Amazon, but just does not fit our Sonoma,” Ding said this week. “They could easily find another location and continue to service our community.”

Email Jason Walsh at Jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.