Yet another massive warehouse planned in Central Jersey

The jobs are wanted. The traffic is not.

The tax ratable is wanted. The carbon footprint is not.

Plenty of people are complaining about the proliferation of warehouses in New Jersey. It’s not your imagination. The number of warehouses in the Garden State has grown by 35% in the last twenty years. Some call them eyesores and say it should be called the Not-So-Garden State.

According to a report from the Environmental Defense Fund the state has 3.034 warehouses and they generate 380,000 truck trips every single day. If we left out weekends and only counted a five-day work week that would account for 98,800,000 truck trips every year. Nearly 100 million in a state as small as this is a lot to say the least.

One in three New Jersey residents live near a “mega-warehouse.” For those who see it as a problem, it is only getting worse.

A massive warehouse may be coming to Monroe. Federal Business Centers of Raritan Center in Edison is seeking preliminary and final site plan approval to put up a 176,085-square-foot warehouse at 63 North Disbrow Hill Road and Butcher Road. There would be office space as well and the company is also seeking bulk variances.

To the west, north and south of this location are residential neighborhoods. Those folks may be seeing lots more truck traffic than they ever bargained for when they were making offers on their homes.

Federal Business Center was expected to have their warehouse plans heard at a public meeting Thursday night.

It used to seem like the rest of the country’s perception of New Jersey was all factories and smokestacks. I wonder if that is now shifting to a perception of endless warehouses and truck traffic. If the ever-growing number of huge warehouses is part of the updated New Jersey joke, I have to wonder where this punchline is heading.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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