While its Worcester warehouse sits idle, Amazon has been paying property taxes. Here's how much.
WORCESTER – Since Amazon purchased the former site of the Greendale Mall in late 2019, the question about a warehouse opening continues to remain unanswered, especially in the minds of residents who often see the white-and-blue building sitting in silence like a giant question mark in the city.
Amazon, headquartered in Seattle and with posted revenues for 2022 at $514 billion, continues to promise that the warehouse “is still in our future plans,” according to the company's spokeswoman Caitlin McLaughlin, who did not hint at a target open date.
Until the mysterious opening date arrives, the holding company FP Greendale Owner LLC continues to pay property taxes, as it has done since it first bought the property in 2019.
Property records show the city has seen a total of more than $449,886.99 in net real estate tax payments.
This includes property tax payments for two separate properties on Neponset Street – 7 and 12 Neponset St., both of which FP Greendale absorbed in the deal in 2019, when it bought the properties for $7,125,000.
Throughout calendar year 2022, FP Greendale paid a net $173,893.61 for 7 Neponset St., the property where the 121,212-square-foot Amazon warehouse is located.
The previous year, property records show the company paid a net of $128,056.25, while throughout 2020 they paid $96,874.34.
The smaller property at 12 Neponset St. - a 43,011-square-foot lot – has since 2019 been turned into a parking lot and is addressed separately because of its location across the street from the warehouse.
For the property, FP Greendale paid a net $23,145.59 last year, $17,651.30 in 2021 and $10,265.90 in 2020.
Eastern Real Estate, the Boston developers who erected the building, say on its website that work on the property was completed in November of last year.
The warehouse was spared last year when five locations across eastern Massachusetts were slashed; it was the local effect of a massive closing that started in March of last year, when 99 warehouses across the country were slated for closing – a 32.3-million-square-foot total in warehouse space.
Others, like the one in Worcester, remain unopened.
In Leominster, a fully constructed building that is supposed to house Amazon Fresh, the retailer’s take on a supermarket, remains unopened.
The same goes for Amazon Fresh locations in Billerica, Saugus, Westborough and Braintree, where work is almost complete, but no open date is known.
Since early 2021, an Amazon distribution center at 125 Goddard Memorial Drive - a 177,000-square-foot warehouse - took up the building formerly occupied by TE Connectivity near Worcester Regional Airport, and it has been active since.
This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: See how much Worcester has received in property taxes on Amazon's idle warehouse
