Amazon Grocery Store Coming Soon? Company Mum On Route 9 Plans

WESTBOROUGH, MA — Going by aesthetics alone, it appears Westborough may soon be home to an Amazon Fresh grocery store.

Recent facade renovations at the Speedway Plaza, 290 Turnpike Road (Route 9), resemble other Amazon Fresh stores that have opened in the U.S. — although the company has declined to say what its retail plans are in Westborough.

"We do not comment on our future roadmap," Amazon Fresh spokeswoman Jessica Martin said this week.

The Seattle-based company has opened more than 40 Amazon Fresh grocery stores in states like Illinois, Washington, California, New York, Maryland and Pennsylvania. The company is in the process of building two others in Saugus and Braintree, but those have not opened yet.

The Westborough plaza where the possible Amazon Fresh will go is owned by Needham-based RK Centers, which owns dozens of shopping plazas in Massachusetts and other states. The leashing brochure for the Speedway Plaza includes a "national grocer" in the 41,000 square-foot space where the Amazon Fresh lookalike improvements have been made.

Most Amazon Fresh stores offer technology enhancements not seen at other stores that allow customers to skip the checkout line. The company's Dash Cart system allows you to pay for groceries with the Amazon app, and is able to sense the items you put in the cart.

"The cart uses a combination of computer vision algorithms and sensor fusion to identify items put into the cart," according to the company.

Similarly, Fresh stores also offer the "just walk out" technology, where shoppers sign in to the Amazon app and sensors track what you pick out.

Opening an Amazon Fresh in Westborough would be an expansion of the company's already heavy presence in town. The company opened a $40 million Robotics Innovation Hub along Otis Street last fall, right around the corner from the Speedway Plaza. After opening the robotics center, Amazon bought a 93-acre former business park at 54 Otis St., and is building a 100,000 square-foot building for an additional robotics design and research center there.