Amazon representatives, on St. Patrick’s Day, reiterated the firm’s plans for Gorham, drumming up support in a community forum held at a credit union, while protesters outside waved signs.

Amazon has aired its plans in discussions since August when the Town Council announced a deal with the company and the next step is planning board approval.

“Amazon has submitted the application and staff will reach out once a (planning board) date has been selected,” Community Development Director Tom Poirier said in a March 17 email.

The distribution giant seeks permission to build a 146,000-square-foot warehouse on a 94-acre Main Street parcel it has a contract to buy from the town for $4 million. The site is part of a 141-acre property that Gorham voters approved buying in a 2019 referendum.

Kevin Jensen, Gorham’s economic development director, said at the March 17 forum with town, school and business leaders that the property was zoned industrial in 1999. After the town bought the property in 2020 to expand its industrial park, a proposed cold storage facility at the site didn’t materialize.

Enter Amazon. “This location in Gorham seemed perfect,” said Adam Cote, a lawyer representing Amazon, at the forum. Cote is an attorney for Drummond Woodsum in Portland.

Cote said Christina Bernardin, of Bluewater Development, is in charge of building the Amazon facility in Gorham.

Bernardin told the gathering the warehouse would be 36 feet in height and would operate around the clock with two or three shifts. The site would have separate entrances and parking for employees working inside the warehouse, 550 spaces in a van drivers’ lot, and another entrance designated for tractor trailers.

Sebago Technics is handling the civil engineering and local contractors would be hired for site work and warehouse construction.

Bernardin called the facility a “last-mile” distribution center.

She didn’t have an overall, ballpark cost of the project as she said they have not talked yet with construction contractors.

Once operational, tractor trailers, arriving during the night through Westbrook from the interstate, would be loaded with packages from other distribution centers like those in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Van drivers would likely begin deliveries from the Gorham facility at 9 or 10 a.m.

Cote said Amazon would plan deliveries to avoid commuter rush hours. It hurts their business if vans are stuck in traffic, Cote said.

Amazon’s plans have generated opposition primarily from the adjacent Shamrock Drive residential street to the west and also across Main Street from the Gateway Commons development.