Amazon received a quick blessing Wednesday from the North Little Rock Planning Commission to place a 16,333-square-foot tent structure for a temporary, transitory distribution facility adjacent to Interstate 30.
Requests for seven waivers by the company of city Planning Department requirements still must be heard by the City Council. A public hearing on the requested waivers is scheduled during the City Council's 6 p.m. meeting Monday.
Wednesday's meeting, a specially called meeting of the Planning Commission, was needed to finalize recommendations by the commission's Subdivision Committee that met in its own special meeting Friday to implement standard city requirements for the project. The special meetings were asked for to expedite the process, or otherwise wait until next month's regular meetings.
The full commission met for about two minutes, voting 7-0 to approve the Subdivision Committee's recommendations.
The 4.5-acre site at 1920 Locust St. will house the sorting facility with space to unload two tractor-trailers, according to a site plan submitted to the city Planning Department last week. There also will be spaces to allow 14 vans to be loaded with packages from larger trucks.
Amazon, the world's large retailer, is trying a new concept for speed package delivery by using the tentlike distribution centers that will sort packages from larger Amazon distribution sites and take them "the last mile." Such service is now largely handled by the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx and UPS. Amazon has similar tentlike distribution centers, ranging from 16,000 to 20,000 square feet, going up elsewhere in the country, as well.
The tent structure, which can be built "in a matter of weeks," according to company information, won't have water or sewer connections. Three smaller, modular buildings -- to be used for a general office, a break room and restrooms -- are to have water and sewer connections, according to a site plan.
Norman Clifton, owner of the property Amazon will lease, said Wednesday that the three modular buildings may be less than 1,500 square feet total. The 16,333-square-foot center is smaller than the minimum 30,000-square-foot facility anticipated when the City Council voted to rezone the property just south of the I-30/I-40 interchange from residential and conservation to an industrial classification for the planned distribution center.
"They scaled that back," Clifton said of Amazon's plan.
Clifton, longtime chairman of the Planning Commission, sat in the audience for Wednesday's special commission meeting instead of with other commissioners and didn't vote on the motion to approve. There was no discussion or questions from commissioners or anyone in attendance.
Thomas Pownall, vice president of Thomas Engineering Co., representing Amazon, submitted a written request Sept. 12 for waivers of seven planning requirements because of the "current site conditions and transitory nature of this operation," the letter stated. Only the City Council can act on the waiver requests.
Requested are waivers for requirements for having a masonry dumpster enclosure; providing parking lot shade trees; providing street trees; providing continuous shrub planting in front of outward parking spots; providing front and side landscape strips; providing a full buffer and screening between industrial and residential zone properties; and to allow existing razor wire fencing along the front building line to be retained.
Metro on 09/20/2018