SAUGUS — Residents expressed reactions about Amazon’s plans to open an Amazon Fresh grocery store, the first of its kind in the region, in the old Big Y location on Broadway. This week, the company confirmed its plans to open the store after an Amazon Fresh sign was displayed on the building.
The company said that in addition to traditional checkout lines, the location will have Just Walk Out technology, “which gives customers the option to skip the checkout line.”
Saugus residents said they were not very well-informed about the opening, and they would prefer to support local businesses instead of larger, more well-known companies coming to the town.
“I know nothing about it, I don’t deal with Amazon,” said Fred Henry, Saugus resident.
Henry said that whatever Amazon was going to do with its Saugus location, it should have better informed the public; “at least me,” he said.
“I can’t believe it’s taking them that long to open that place,” Henry said.
Sarah Smith, another Saugus resident, said that she wasn’t going to go to the new store.
“I would rather support more of our local businesses,” said Smith.
Resident Sharon Wade said she did not know anything about the opening, and that she did not understand why the town needed another grocery store in addition to those already open, considering the other issues facing the town, like traffic.
“I don’t know why they keep changing, it requires too much money. I wish they focused on the traffic, not just build another store,” said Wade.
Amazon Fresh in the Saugus Plaza shopping center, at the former site of the Big Y supermarket, is going to be the first location in New England. Initially, an announcement regarding the construction of a new vision for the shopping plaza was announced in February by JLL Capital Market during a Saugus Board of Selectmen meeting.
Boston-based management company Finard Properties has been supervising the project and working with JLL to place a fixed-rate loan. The loan was used to build the grocery space for a national credit grocery.
Oksana Kotkina can be reached at [email protected].
