Monday night the Circus Council did something they don’t do very often…the right thing for the city. They voted unanimously to allow The Paper Store to operate a warehouse and distribution center out of a vacant industrial building at 46 Industrial Road.
This property has sat vacant for a number of months and with the exception of some transient short term tenants, it’s been virtually vacant for a few years. The owners of The Paper Store have been negotiating to purchase the property subject to receipt of this special permit. This purchase will be great for the city since the previous owner lost the property to foreclosure. The property can now start generating some real tax dollars.
The next thing that needs to be done in Leominster with respect to the operation of a distribution center is to eliminate the need for a special permit to operate a warehouse and distribution business not associated with a manufacturing business located within the city limits. In other words, if you operate a manufacturing company in Leominster you can also have an off-site warehouse and distribution center. If you don’t manufacture in Leominster, you can’t.
This is an old ordinance that in my opinion should be rewritten. The idea behind the ordinance was to keep big companies from coming into the city and occupying a huge industrial building for warehousing and only having one or two people working in the building. The city wants to bring in companies to create jobs, and contribute to the local economy which I agree with but things have changed since this ordinance was originally written.
The reality is that today’s distribution facilities don’t just have one guy rolling around in a forklift moving boxes. They’re highly sophisticated and take many many people to operate. The distribution centers of today create jobs, fill up vacant properties, and even help to contribute to the local economy .
There are too many large vacant buildings in the area to be so picky that we are not allowing these distribution centers to open up. The Paper Store should not have even had to go for a special permit.
Enough with the hoops and hurdles. This type of thing happens way too often in Leominster and business owners are getting tired of it!
Posted by lemon1 
