GRAND ISLAND, N.Y. — Grand Island's planning board didn't make any decisions Thursday night in a virtual meeting on a large proposed project on Long Road that's long been rumored to be a massive Amazon facility.
But they did hear from a lot of people in the town that claim the facility would bring crippling traffic and environmental damage while not actually benefiting the town, along with others who spoke in support of the jobs and tax money it would bring.
There's no timeline yet on that project, which has been affected by the pandemic.
A proposal for a huge e-commerce facility on Grand Island officially went before the town planning board in March.
It's called "Project Olive," and even though attorneys representing the developers did not reveal who is behind the project at the time, it was believed to be Amazon.
The 145-acre site would bring 1,000 jobs and 300 more construction jobs. But it's the traffic that seems to be on everyone's minds, which is why attorneys representing TC Buffalo Development said in March that a traffic study was completed.
"The data was collected during higher traffic volume times in what you would consider to be January and February," the project's traffic engineer told 2 On Your Side in March.
She says they studied nine intersections and it ultimately found there would need to be a few improvements made to ease congestion.
One of them includes a new traffic signal at Interstate 190 and Long Road.