021825...R BAZ-AMAZON 2...Bazetta...02-18-25...Site prep work has begun on the Amazon warehouse to be constructed at 711 Perkins Jones Road in Bazetta...The Whiting-Turner Contracting Co. is the General Contractor...by R. Michael Semple

Staff report

BAZETTA — Land is being cleared on Perkins Jones Road for the $30 million Amazon warehouse distribution center.

Heavy equipment could be seen at the site Monday and Tuesday.

The project, referred to as Project Penguin, is at 711 Perkins Jones Road and encompasses 61.2 acres, according to information on the Trumbull County Auditor’s office. It was sold Jan. 22 to Amazon Services LLC by Tina N. Pestalozzi of Cortland at a sale price of $918,450.

Trustees could not release the name of the buyer when the project was announced because of a nondisclosure agreement.

The project is estimated to create 120 full-time jobs and will consist of an approximately 169,000-square-foot distribution center and accessory structures, Bazetta Zoning Inspector Pete Pizzulo said previously.

The Ambrose Property Group is the project developer. Ambrose is a privately held industrial, logistics and e-commerce real estate developer headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Ambrose develops speculative and build-to-suit projects nationwide in the top U.S. industrial markets, according to Trustee Chairman Mike Hovis, who said trustees hope the project brings further growth to the township.

“We’ll be having a preconstruction meeting here pretty soon with the sanitary engineer’s office. I’m pretty sure they’re going to want to put out some type of press release,” Hovis said in late January.

Pizzulo said in May the company began inquiring about the vacant property just over two years ago.

“With the Youngstown / Warren Regional Chamber and real estate agents knowing that we have some industrial land over here that’s not being utilized, one of the biggest things was infrastructure,” Pizzulo said when Project Penguin was announced.

The site is not served by Trumbull County water and sewer. And as part of the development, Ambrose will oversee the 2,000-plus-foot extension of the public sewer main along Perkins Jones Road NE.

Plans for the sewer extension were submitted to the Trumbull County Sanitary Engineer’s Office for review. Project Penguin also will incorporate “substantial” EV charging infrastructure on the project site, Hovis added.

The developers of the Amazon warehouse will build a privately funded sewer line along a length of Perkins Jones Road NE, and residents with frontage on the road can connect without paying a frontage fee to Trumbull County, it was announced in September.

Residents still will need to pay the $1,800 tap-in fee to the county, Pizzulo said, and residents will have to hire their own contractors, but the reduction in cost to connect to a sewer line is significant.

Costs of hooking into a sewer line can run anywhere from $500 to $1,500 by some estimates. Hooking into the sewer line is entirely voluntary, Pizzulo said. The planned line will run from Bazetta Road to the S-curve in Perkins Jones Road, he added.

In December, trustees announced the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency granted the permits to proceed with the construction of the warehouse.