Gloucester Planning Board Advances Applied Materials Expansion Toward June 18 Decision

GLOUCESTER -- June 4, 2026, Gloucester Planning Board hears first presentation on Applied Materials' largest-ever campus expansion. The board held a public hearing June 4 on a Watershed Protection Overlay Special Permit and site plan review for a proposed three-story, roughly 130,000-square-foot addition to the Applied Materials semiconductor equipment facility at 35 Dory Road, described by civil engineer Peter Glick of SMMA as the company's first large-scale expansion at the Gloucester site. The project, which already holds a height special permit at 50.9 feet, would displace 82 parking spaces but bring total supply to 598 against a zoning requirement of approximately 477, drawing on a remote lot built for this purpose in 2004. Planning Director Greg Cadmatori noted that the project's drainage outfalls to the same downstream wetland as the separate 11 Dory Road expansion currently under peer review, saying there is "some interrelationship here," and said an in-house engineering review would be forwarded to the applicant before the continued hearing. The board voted 6-0 to continue the public hearing to June 18, 2026, where staff's written engineering report and a Conservation Commission determination scheduled for June 17 will frame the next discussion.