Would you trade your soul to get faster delivery of that touch-screen toaster you ordered?
Those are the stakes at play, opponents say only half-jokingly, as online retail giant Amazon eyes an expansion into Vermont. The Town of Essex is reviewing the company’s proposal to build its first-ever warehouse in the state, a 107,000-square-foot depot that would serve as a way station between Amazon’s larger regional distribution centers and Vermonters’ doorsteps.
Company officials say it would bring jobs and faster delivery times to a state not known for either. But residents and business owners who consider Amazon an affront to Vermont values are mounting spirited opposition. They bristle at the anticipated environmental and traffic impacts, as well as what they say Amazon and its billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, represent: corporate bullies willing to squeeze employees and pummel competition in their quest for endless profits.
“Vermont prides itself on strong labor protections and thriving small businesses. Amazon’s model undermines both,” said Bill Calfee, who has tried to take on the company with his Burlington-based e-commerce startup, Myti.
Residents and business owners who consider Amazon an affront to Vermont values are mounting spirited opposition.
The debate over whether to welcome a controversial corporation for the sake of convenience is reminiscent of the drawn-out and ultimately unsuccessful fight to keep Walmart out of Vermont in the 1990s. What’s different is that Amazon’s proposal comes at a time when anti-billionaire sentiment is growing.
“We already see what’s happening with Elon Musk and DOGE,” said Leah Beckhoff, 32, of Montpelier, during a rally against the Amazon proposal earlier this month in Essex. She was referring, of course, to Musk’s haphazard cuts of jobs and programs funded by the federal government through the Department of Government Efficiency, which he heads.
Beckhoff held a cardboard sign that read “F*ck You Bezos.” Allowing Amazon to expand unabated, she said, would only further consolidate money and power in America.
“I’m worried about what that could mean for what’s left of our democracy,” she said.
Amazon’s public relations team declined an interview request but said in a statement that the proposal was still in the “early planning stages.” A company rep who attended a meeting in Essex last month said it would benefit Amazon’s “many” customers in Vermont.
Exactly how many is hard to know. Vermont for years relied on consumers to self-report online purchases in order to collect the 6 percent state sales tax. That changed in 2017, when Amazon agreed to start collecting the levy on its end — a move that state economists estimated then would bring in more than $5 million in new revenue each year.
Asked about the current figures, the state tax department said it could not disclose the dollar amounts it collects from individual businesses. But sales spiked during the pandemic, when housebound shoppers were lured by two-day delivery and endless streaming options available through paid Amazon Prime accounts.
The Vermont warehouse is part of Amazon’s plan to hasten shipments. The company used to rely entirely on third-party distributors to deliver its packages. That began to change after a massive backlog at UPS during the holidays in 2013 meant many gifts ordered from Amazon arrived after Christmas.
The resulting blow to the company’s reputation prompted Bezos to begin building his own distribution network, one that would put goods closer to customers, said Marc Wulfraat, who closely tracks Amazon’s growth as president of the Montréal-based firm MWPVL International.
The company started by putting warehouses in some of America’s largest cities, then expanded into rural areas, including parts of New England, using smaller buildings such as the one now proposed in Essex.
Nearly 600 so-called “delivery stations” have been built to date, including about 100 in low-population, rural areas, Wulfraat said, and the company has revealed plans for another 100 in the near future.
While Amazon still has contracts with UPS and the U.S. Postal Service for “last-mile” service, Wulfraat estimates that the company will eventually be able to deliver about 95 percent of its own orders. He said it’s already on track this year to deliver some 500 million orders that UPS would have previously.
Wulfraat isn’t surprised by Amazon’s foray into Vermont. The company is essentially taking a list of American cities, sorting by descending order of population and plopping down a new warehouse wherever it can, he said. With more than 100,000 people, the Burlington metropolitan area has been “long overdue,” Wulfraat said.
The Vermont warehouse is proposed for a 23-acre parcel off Thompson Drive in Essex’s Saxon Hill Industrial Park, where large manufacturers and distributors — including Autumn Harp, Blodgett and Performance Foodservice — are located. The park is removed from large residential areas, though some who live nearby have complained about the flow of big-truck traffic between the park and Interstate 89, several miles away.
Company officials estimate that one or two tractor trailers would arrive at the Amazon facility each hour between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. to deliver packages from bigger warehouses, most likely those in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Workers would sort the packages and load them into a fleet of Amazon-branded vans to be delivered to homes and businesses in a 70-mile radius.
Amazon warehouses of this size haven’t always been well received by locals. In Milford, Mass., where the company opened one of its first rural delivery stations in 2016, neighbors reported that drivers were urinating behind shrubbery, speeding down quiet streets and crashing into other motorists.
Labor unions point to such concerns when trying to convince cities and towns to block Amazon’s proposals. The coordinated efforts are meant to protect unionized UPS jobs and foster support for future campaigns to organize labor unions at Amazon facilities, the financial news outlet Bloomberg has reported. But the development plans often go unnoticed until it is too late to mount a meaningful opposition.
The Vermont proposal came to light last month during a meeting of Essex’s Conservation and Trails Committee, which vets all development plans and offers recommendations. News quickly spread, and members of the town’s Development Review Board, which must sign off on projects before they can break ground, arrived at a March 20 hearing to find a standing-room-only crowd of 80, with dozens more watching virtually.
When it was their turn to speak, opponents attacked the proposal from every angle. They raised traffic and environmental concerns, highlighted the well-documented poor working conditions at other Amazon warehouses, and questioned the company’s long-term commitment to Vermont. Earlier this year, Amazon announced that it was shutting down seven facilities in Québec after workers at one of them unionized.
The hearing dragged into the late hours of the night, prompting board members to postpone a decision until their May 1 meeting. That’s been moved to Essex High School in anticipation of another large, contentious crowd.
Whether the opposition can actually kill the project is unclear. Towns must vet development proposals based on their preapproved zoning codes, which mostly deal with “geometric considerations” such as building size, setbacks and stormwater mitigation measures, Essex town planner Kent Johnson said.
“They do not involve criteria about business practices or labor issues or how that company competes with other companies,” Johnson said.
Opponents have tried to find reasons the project may run afoul of local zoning codes, such as a somewhat vague requirement that developments be kept “in harmony with nature.” But a staff report from Essex’s planning department suggests the project mostly passes regulatory muster.
The one area where it doesn’t — a required 50-foot buffer between the road and building — has been waived for previous applicants, including one just weeks ago. Ignoring that precedent because people don’t like Amazon could open the door to litigation.
Among those planning to attend next month’s meeting is Renee Reiner, the cofounder of Phoenix Books, which has storefronts in Essex, Burlington and Rutland.
Reiner bought her first bookstore with her husband in 1995, the year after Bezos launched Amazon as an online bookseller. Even then, Reiner said, she recognized that the platform would one day hawk more than just hardcovers and paperbacks. Yet she never thought she’d see the day that Amazon would be plotting to blanket Chittenden County — and beyond — with its own delivery vans.
The company’s presence would lead more people to buy from Amazon, she opined, dealing yet another blow to local businesses such as hers. Phoenix Books recently relocated its Burlington shop to Church Street, a high-traffic location with an equally high rent. Even a small drop in business could spell doom, she said.
Wulfraat, the Montréal consultant, doubted that the warehouse would pose much of a threat to the local economy. “Mainly because that threat happened a long time ago,” he said. If a bookstore is still in business in 2025, he added, it’s because its owners are “doing a good job.”
But Reiner worries her efforts eventually won’t be enough. She vowed to fight the company until the bitter end.
“Jeff Bezos wants to wipe me off the face of the planet,” Reiner said. “I just want to do the same to him.”
The original print version of this article was headlined “Prime Real Estate? | Amazon wants to build a warehouse in Essex. Vermonters aren’t pleased.”
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This article appears in Apr 16-22, 2025.
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