Residents welcome boost from giant warehouse

Along a rural two-lane road on the eastern edge of Ottawa, residents are preparing, with anticipation and some trepidation, to welcome a new neighbour to their quaint stretch of country — a millionsquare-foot distribution centre for e-commerce giant Amazon.

“I think it’s a good thing. It’s about time something happens to us here in Ottawa besides just … government,” said Ross Sabourin, a retiree who’s lived in Carlsbad Springs for 25 years.

He had been renovating his home, looking to move elsewhere in the not-so-distant future, and is now anticipating a boost in property value thanks to the new development.

Other neighbours focused much of their praise on the jobs Amazon plans to create at the site — 1,500 during construction of the facility and 600 full-time, permanent jobs at the warehouse itself.

“I might even apply for a job,” said Mark Eaton, a Carlsbad Springs resident who currently works in the food industry.

Eaton, who owns the Country Grill, a local food stand, expressed excitement over the commercial development that will likely be built up to service the workers who will be picking, packing and shipping the products that Amazon distributes to its customers.

In addition to the Country Grill, which stands across from the property on Boundary Road at Highway 417 where the Amazon facility is expected to open in 2019, Guy Landry also owns 2.5 acres of highway commercial property along the road.

“Everything ’s always for sale at one point,” he said, when asked if he’d considered giving up the land to a developer looking to capitalize on the area’s growth.

“Who knows in the future what happens?”

With few stores or restaurants to be found until you hit Orléans, residents seemed mostly delighted by the idea of seeing more amenities pop up around the Amazon development.

“Once you get 1,000 people here, they’re going to need support, whether it’s restaurants or a place to get your shoes repaired,” said Bruce Sherritt, a Carlsbad Springs retiree.

But the excitement over Amazon’s arrival wasn’t universal or unconditional.

Many nearby residents expressed some concern that the distribution centre — with a proposed 99 truck bays and 1,000 parking spots — will exacerbate their existing frustrations with traffic in the area.

“Already there’s a lot of traffic. We have rush hour in Russell,” said Judy James.

James farms fields on both sides of Boundary Road and worries that more trucks on the road will disrupt her operations.

“If this road had 50 cars (on) it in a day when I moved here, it now has 1,000. Sometimes you’ll wait as long as five, 10 minutes to get out on the road, there’s that much traffic,” said Sherritt, whose Boundary Road home of 30 years backs onto GreyHawk Golf Club.

“You can’t do nothing about it,” he concluded.

“We would like to live in a sleepy village, which it was 30 years ago, but that’s not happening. Progress is progress.”