Online retailer reportedly eyeing Route 539 redevelopment zone
By Joanne Degnan, Managing Editor
ROBBINSVILLE — Mayor Dave Fried confirmed Tuesday the giant online retailer Amazon is considering the 176-acre redevelopment zone off Route 539 for one of the two mega-warehouses it has pledged to open in New Jersey in 2013.
“We are in talks with them,” Mayor Fried said, referring to Amazon, but he declined to say whether contracts have been signed. “We’re obviously going to be very excited if this happens for us.”
The Township Council adopted an ordinance July 26 providing tax breaks to Matrix 7A Urban Renewal LLC if the developer builds a 1,039,500 square foot warehouse “on spec” in the redevelopment zone. The timing of the approval of a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) program for Matrix or its “transferee” prompted speculation because it occurred just two months after Amazon announced plans to open a pair of 1-million-square-foot fulfillment distribution centers in two undisclosed New Jersey locations in exchange for tax breaks.
At the time, town officials and Matrix Senior Vice President Ken Griffin, would only say Matrix was developing the warehouse the size of about 25 football fields purely on speculation. Mayor Fried’s statement Tuesday was the first confirmation that the town is working on a deal to bring Amazon to Robbinsville.
The Southeast Industrial Redevelopment Area where the project is planned is comprised of nine mostly vacant lots located between Interstate 195 and Gordon Road near the township’s border with Upper Freehold. The rest of the 434-acre Matrix Business Park is not in the redevelopment zone.
The McKesson Corporation is currently building a 350,000-square-foot distribution center that is expected to open in April 2013 in this same redevelopment area. McKesson, a major U.S. pharmaceutical distributor, was lured to the Southeast Industrial Redevelopment Area with tax breaks authorized under a payment in lieu of taxes program approved by the Township Council.
McKesson will pay $2.5 million under the first five years of the PILOT program and a total of $6.5 million over a 10-year span, according to the township.
The financial agreement with Matrix 7A Urban Renewal LLC, or its transferee, would generate $13,755,000 in payments to Robbinsville in lieu of property taxes over the next 20 years, township officials said.
The land where the distribution center is planned is largely vacant and currently used to grow crops — a use that now generates only “a few thousands dollars” in tax revenue annually for the township, the mayor said in July.
Gov. Chris Christie and Amazon executive Paul Misener held a Statehouse news conference May 30 to announce Amazon would open two New Jersey distribution centers and also begin collecting the state’s 7 percent sales tax in July 2013 on all online purchases made by New Jersey consumers.
Amazon does not collect New Jersey sales tax now because it does not have a physical business operation here. Although state residents are supposed to pay sales taxes on their online purchases when they file their state income tax, few people do. If Amazon collects the state sales tax up front from consumers, it will produce $30 million to $40 million in annual tax revenue for the state, Gov. Christie said.

