After months and months of meetings and countless hours of planning, Project Sailfish was approved at the Town of Montgomery Planning Board meeting last Monday.

The approval brings a large project to the Town of Montgomery. Project Sailfish is an Amazon warehouse that will measure approximately one million square feet. The facility will be a non-sortable fulfillment center, housing items that cannot be sorted due to size. These items cannot be placed onto a conveyor belt for automated sorting.

The project will be placed near Interstate-84 and the intersections of NYS Route 17K and 747 in the Town of Montgomery. Project Sailfish will bring more than 1,000 car parking spaces and 225 truck trailer spaces. It is estimated that the warehouse will cost $85 million to build.

According to the State Environmental Quality Review Act findings statement, the warehouse is expected to be fully operational in the first half of 2021. The statement also revealed that the project would employ up to 1,100 full-time employees, typically in multiple shifts. Seasonal increase in employment is expected in the fourth quarter annually. The project would also create a number of short-term construction jobs using a significant amount of local labor. The town’s Industrial Development Agency has a local labor requirement that requires a minimum of 85 percent local labor.

Despite the warehouse’s benefits to the local economy, many residents of the Town of Montgomery dislike the project.

“Sailfish will cause at least eight months of heavy traffic,” said Karina Tipton, a resident of the Town of Montgomery.