Plainfield approves Costco distribution center planned for Connecticut

Plainfield’s approval of Costco’s Connecticut depot puts a 1.1 million-square-foot warehouse in position to become one of the company’s biggest logistics jobs sites in the Northeast. Costco said the facility would employ about 190 people in its first year and 250 by year five, a staffing ramp that points to a phased build-out long before the first New England pallet reaches a store.

The project straddles the Plainfield and Canterbury line between Tarbox Road and Butts Bridge Road and is meant to serve Costco’s New England store base. Costco chose the site because of its central location in the Northeast, and the company has said the depot could handle about 600 trucks entering or leaving per day in an early phase. It would run from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday through Saturday, which means the work would be built around early receiving, dock coordination, yard movement and a steady flow of outbound freight rather than late-night retail hours.

For warehouse workers, that schedule matters. A depot like this does not open with every job slot filled on day one; staffing usually grows as construction, equipment installation and operating systems come online. That means the first hires are likely to be the people who keep the operation moving before the truck volume peaks: supervisors, dispatch and scheduling staff, forklift operators, receivers, inventory control workers, maintenance crews and safety personnel. As the site matures, the ripple effect can reach nearby Costco warehouses, where stronger replenishment links can change how quickly freight moves from a regional depot to the sales floor.

The zoning fight lasted months. Costco first laid out the plan at Plainfield High School in September 2025. Plainfield approved zoning text amendments in February 2026, then rejected the requested zone change in March. After Costco and the landowners sued, arguing the commission had acted illegally and arbitrarily, the town moved toward settlement talks in May. At a June 9 meeting at Plainfield High School, the commission heard Costco’s proposal, but residents were not allowed to comment because it was a litigation-related meeting rather than a public hearing.

The settlement trimmed the Plainfield-side rezoning request by about 41 acres while keeping the building size unchanged. It cut employee parking on the Plainfield side from 310 spaces to 179 and tractor-trailer parking from 713 to 664, removed a section of employee driveway behind South Street and added landscaped berms atop retaining walls near homes on Tarbox Road and North Street. The commission approved the stipulated judgment June 10 in a 3-2 vote.

The fight reflected a larger clash over jobs and traffic. Supporters saw commerce and economic activity; opponents focused on truck volume on Route 12, also known as Norwich Road, and on the cumulative industrial buildout already visible nearby. If the depot is built, it would be Costco’s first distribution center in Connecticut, with the next closest in New Jersey, and one more major node in the company’s high-wage logistics network.