Fresh Direct Scales Back Project
Mott Haven Herald
By Editor
FreshDirect has scrapped plans to build a parking lot for its trucking operations on a three-acre parcel on the Harlem River Yard property where it plans to relocate. Instead, the food delivery company says it will keep its trucks on a larger parcel closer to where its new 500,000 square foot central facility would be built.
The company announced in a written statement on Dec. 14 that, by giving up the three-acre parcel, it hopes “to streamline and make our operations more efficient” while “addressing a number of concerns expressed by residents arising from the proximity of our trucks.”
The brief statement said the scale-back would not affect the company’s stated goal “of hiring 1,000 employees and moving to a 100 percent green transportation fleet.”
But an attorney representing citizens group South Bronx Unite, which filed suit in June to stop the project, called the company’s claim it is responding to community demands “absurd.”
