Massive Wareham Street warehouse proposal downsized by 30,000 square feet

MIDDLEBORO — It’s not as big as before, but it’s still big.

The development team hoping to build a large warehouse at 678 Wareham St. shrunk the proposed building’s size from 928,000 square feet to 898,000 square feet.

“We heard loud and clear a lot of the discussion, a lot of the concerns, went back with that and said, ‘Alright, how can we shrink up this footprint?’” project engineer Todd Morey told the Middleboro Conservation Commission at its Oct. 15 meeting.

This was done to keep the proposed building away from protected wetlands and the buffer zones around them, Morey said.

Only the access road leading to the building would enter the 100 foot wetland buffer zone.

Morey said it was miraculous that the plan was only 30,000 square feet smaller after eliminating overlap with wetlands.

He said the parking lots would be reconfigured and the loading area size reduced to go along with the smaller building.

Maine businessman Peter Gerrity originally filed the proposal, which would sit next to the Rochester border, in February 2025. It does not have a tenant lined up, and is designed to attract potential “Fortune 100” customers, according to Michael Milanoski, a representative for the development team and the former Carver town manager.

The Conservation Commission and many residents spoke out against the proposal at an Oct. 1 meeting, saying it would harm the local ecosystem. 

The Conservation Commission preferred this proposal to the one the development team presented at the previous meeting. Under that proposal, over 3,000 square feet of conservation land would be directly affected.

“We like this plan better,” said Conservation Commission member Adam Guaraldi.

But the commission still raised concerns about the revised project. Conservation Commission member Diane Stewart said that truck traffic passing in and out of the warehouse would come “very close to” natural resource lands.

Guaraldi said that he personally opposes the plan.

Conservation Agent Patricia Cassidy said that the project would still sit on top of an area that could be an isolated wetland subject to flooding. These areas are protected under the Wetlands Protection Act. 

Morey said that the Army Corps of Engineers determined that it was not that type of wetland. Cassidy said that the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection uses different standards than the Army Corps of Engineers.

An independent peer reviewer is being hired to survey the land.