SHREWSBURY — A New Jersey-based developer plans to spend as much as $5.48 million toward improvements on Route 20 to counter excessive traffic expected when an 845,500-square-foot United Parcel Service distribution warehouse opens.
The package-delivery company is set to build a facility near the Grafton line, on 212 acres spreading behind the Grafton Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority commuter rail stop.
Jan. 28, Mark Donahue — a lawyer at Fletcher Tilton in Worcester, who represented Prologis Inc., the developer — and Jonathan Scott, development director at Prologis Inc., addressed the selectmen and fielded questions about the proposal.
Donahue said Prologis is prepared to make a $4.25 million contribution toward the improvements, with the potential of $600,000 more, to complete the improvements to Centech Boulevard-Route 20 intersection, in addition to $600,000 toward design work.
“In regard to traffic, we have the benefit that MassDOT had a 2020 car study done of Route 20 from the Worcester line to the Northborough line,” Donahue said. “We had the benefit of that study indicating what work was needed as an overall scope of full improvement to the intersection of Centech Boulevard and Route 20.”
The Planning Board approved the project.
The land where the project is found is largely undeveloped.
The warehouse is set to have 282 loading docks, 757 exterior trailer parking stalls and 830 car-parking stalls for employees. The average roof height of the main building is about 40.5 feet, records show.
The developer’s projections anticipate that the warehouse will generate about 5,000 trips per 24 hours, plans show.
“As Prologis was exploring this opportunity, they come to the table and look to partner with the town to ensure that this facility is viable in Shrewsbury and mitigates impacts that it will have on the community, especially those associated with traffic, since it’s a traffic-based operation,” Town Manager Kevin Mizikar explained during the Jan. 28 selectmen meeting.
Prologis has already started doing a full survey of the intersection, which is approximately 2,700-linear-feet, which will be the baseline for “a full, 100% design plan to meet MassDOT standards," Donahue said.
The Town of Shrewsbury will choose the design company to do the work, while Prologis will contribute $600,000 toward that work, Donahue said.
When those plans are approximately 75% completed, design engineers will develop a preliminary budget, Donahue said.
“If that preliminary budget is equal to or less than the initial contribution, which is $4.25 million, Prologis will contribute that amount to that work,” Donahue said. “If the budget exceeds that amount at the preliminary budget, then the commitment of the town and Prologis is to work also with MassDOT to do, essentially, value engineering of the work to see if the price can be reduced in some fashion.”
Donahue said if the budget is still over that $4.25 million amount, Prologis will contribute another 15% of roughly $600,000 to be able to get to that point.
“That number is more than just a stick in the ground,” Donahue said. “The $4.25 million is the result of work that our traffic consultants have presented to the town, had been reviewed by the town by a line-by-line basis as to the total all-in cost of the roadway.”
Mizikar said he expects that it will take 12 months to design and permit the project, with an additional 18 months, two years to construct.
“Real operation” of the UPS warehouse isn’t expected until the first or second quarter of 2027, Donahue said.