Thoughts on distribution center plan
East Norwalkers, as of late, have been facing outrages emanating from city government and developers on what the indigenous see as ongoing and looming threats to their desired small town status. The latest affront is for the conversion of the old Norden factory into a distribution center, or warehouse as some have labeled it. What is being proposed, though, is not a warehouse, but a distribution center.
What some consider a warehouse is generally a structure that stores needed supplies or products for, perhaps, a grocery or department store, production facility or factory. For instance, when I was the assistant traffic manager, then traffic manager, for the Ferro Corporation on Smith Street — same location now occupied by Sav-a-Tree — it was my job to see to the storage of bagged chemicals, drummed chemicals and other raw materials for production; as well as cardboard boxes, shrink wrap, cores, pails, etc., again for products being produced. Space was set aside as well for what was produced for eventual shipment. The beginning of the month was devoted to the receipt of raw materials, while the balance of the month was devoted to shipping what had been produced. But the warehouse serviced our plant solely. We had not a distribution center.
What is construed as being a distribution center, unlike a warehouse, is not a facility to merely “store” products. Distribution centers are more customer oriented from the perspective of the velocity of shipping and receiving. And so while a warehouse stores products and raw materials, the distribution center is designed for the movement of goods to customers from production facilities and even other warehouses. Since distribution centers — efficient ones at least — are equipped with the latest technology for processing orders, the storage of goods and the management of transportation, to which a standard warehouse many not be.
Generally a warehouse is organic to the facility it is servicing. Not external customers on a region-wide or even a nation-wide basis. And, generally a warehouse cannot be a distribution center; yet, a distribution center can be a warehouse.
Compounding the issue of the size of the structure, is what will be shipped in and shipped out on a regular basis; perhaps foods of a variety including frozen, hardware and construction products, hightech and related; parts and equipment for car dealerships, auto parts stores and repair shops; how about flammables and even poisons. And this leads, of course, to the traffic. Truck traffic alone, as alluded to, during a recent briefing by planners of the impending conversion, implied upwards of 199 trucks in a single 24-hour period. Many of these trucks will be of the tractor-trailer type, upwards of 80,000 pounds. Roads like East Avenue, Fitch Street, Strawberry Hill will be abused by such traffic, as will the residential neighborhoods within the vicinity.
Air quality eventually will be called into question. The fate of the bicycle lanes? Quality of life for the residents? Hardly an environment conducive to ascending or maintaining property values for homeowners. And for many in the middle class, a home is their main source of wealth. In such an environment, the possibility of the developers aggrandizing additional properties at lower prices courtesy of the city can certainly not be discounted.