Amazon distribution center underway in Tilton

ONLINE RETAILER ALREADY OPERATES WAREHOUSES IN HOOKSETT AND NASHUA

The construction of an Amazon distribution center, as shown by this photo taken on Oct. 20, is well underway in the Nickerson Business Park in Tilton. (Photo by John Koziol)

Already one of the world’s largest online resellers, Amazon is expanding its presence in New Hampshire, with a new distribution center here.

Based in Seattle, Washington, Amazon has facilities around the country and globe.

In New England, Amazon, said Scan New England, has more than two dozen warehouse and distribution centers: one in Rhode Island; 10 in Connecticut; 16 in Massachusetts; and, sometime in April 2027, three in New Hampshire, including Hooksett, Nashua and Tilton.

Construction is currently ongoing on the Tilton distribution center, which is on two parcels that are located across from each other on Business Park Drive in the Nickerson Business Park, which is off Sanborn Road (New Hampshire Route 132), about a mile east and north of Exit 20 on Interstate 93.

The southern parcel will be the site of a 50,000-square-foot warehouse which will temporarily house orders that are assembled at an Amazon facility elsewhere and brought in by tractor trailers. The northern parcel will be the parking area for several dozen delivery vans, which will load up at the warehouse and then set off on their rounds.

There will be no public entrance to the Amazon property.

The proximity of Business Park Drive to I-93, said Patricia “Pat” Consentino, who is both the chair of the Tilton Board of Selectmen and Tilton’s land-use coordinator, is exactly why Amazon told the Town that it wanted to come there.

“That’s why they chose it,” she said during an interview at her office on Oct. 20.

A representative of Amazon was not immediately available for comment.

Consentino said Amazon, through a third party, filed a site plan application with the Town in 2025, but that the Town learned that the property owner and enduser is Amazon only recently, when the purchase of the approximately 14 acres of land was recorded on June 12 at the Belknap County Register of Deeds.

Based on the amount of the real estate transfer tax paid, Amazon bought a total of seven lots — three north of Business Park Drive measuring 7.83 acres in total and four south of it on 6.73 acres — for $3.89 million, Consentino said.

A selectman since 2009, Consentino said she was “cautiously optimistic” that the Amazon facility will bring jobs and prosperity to Tilton. She noted, however, that several developments in past years have not yet had the hoped-for positive impact on the tax rate for homeowners in town.

She cautioned that Tilton is the majority partner in both the Winnisquam School District and the Tilton-Northfield Fire District, both of which are expected to ask taxpayers for more money to support their budgets.

The Nickerson Business Park was once viewed by the Town as the site of a new police station. The Town even bought a parcel there, Consentino said, but sold it to Sealite, a company that, according to its website, designs and manufactures “marine aids to navigation.”

The town eventually built the new police station on the east side of Sanborn Road, a short distance below the business park. Dependent on a positive vote at the 2027 district meeting, the Tilton-Northfield Fire District is currently contemplating building a new central station on a section of the Tilton Police property.

In exchange for the town donating that land to the fire district, the fire district in turn would donate its Central Station, which is located in downtown Tilton, to the Town.