Steel work halted on Amazon project

Labor violations cited by state

NORTH HAVEN — The state Department of Labor has cited two companies doing steel work on the sprawling Amazon warehouse being built on Washington Avenue for workers’ compensation violations.

Employees of Cooper Steel Fabricators of Shelbyville, Tenn., and TCI Construction of Elgin, Ill., both were issued stop-work orders late Thursday, Paul Oates, a Department of Labor spokesman, said Friday. Oates was uncertain how many workers were ordered off the job as a result.

“We are working with both companies to see that they are brought into compliance,” Oates said.

Officials from neither company were immediately available for comment Friday. Oates said work being done by other companies at the Amazon construction site went on as scheduled Friday.

Amazon officials were not immediately available for comment Friday.

Construction of the sprawling, 1.2-millionsquare-foot warehouse started in mid-February. The $255 million project is expected to be finished and operating by May or June of next year.

The warehouse is being built on the site of a former Pratt & Whitney plant, which closed in 2001. First Selectman Mike Freda has said the warehouse will add 1,800 jobs to the local economy initially, with employment levels expanding to 3,000 over time.

Freda was not available for comment Friday regarding the stop work order issued against the two companies.

The full economic impact of Amazon’s project on the town is expected to be realized starting in 2020, when Freda has said the town is expected to see an average of $5 million in annual local real estate and personal property taxes.

Amazon’s plans for the North Haven site were announced in June 2017.

The company also has a fulfillment center in Windsor and a sorting center in Wallingford. Amazon plans to open what company officials are calling a “delivery center” in the former Yarde Metals plant on Horizon Drive later this month or in early September.

The facility is designed to take items that have already been packaged and sorted and load them onto small vans for delivery to individual ZIP codes, company officials have said.