Dec. 24--After months of refusing to acknowledge its designs for a Lehigh Valley hub, FedEx Ground has filed plans for a $175 million distribution plant that would bring more than 800 new jobs to Allen Township.
The sprawling 1.3 million-square-foot package sorting center could open as early as 2015 and would become such a hive of car and truck traffic that $25 million would have to be spent to widen several roads around Lehigh Valley International Airport.
According to plans filed with the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission last week, the facility and two nearby warehouses would add 14,000 cars and trucks to the roads, requiring more lanes for Airport Road, Race Street and Willowbrook Road.
With so much roadwork needed, it's a project that seemed to have long odds when New York-based Rockefeller Group proposed it six months ago, but not anymore, said Don Cunningham, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp.
"It may have started out as a long shot, but they've come so far, so quickly," Cunningham said. "Barring some unforeseen snag, I think this is going to happen. This is a real game-changer."
With its prime location within a day's truck drive of nearly 60 million people, the Lehigh Valley has become one of the nation's top regions for distribution centers, but the proposed FedEx Ground plant would be unlike any of the warehouse facilities that line Interstate 78 and Route 100.
The FedEx plant would process as many as 15,000 packages per hour that would be trucked in from across the region. Once unloaded from the trucks and into the cavernous building, the packages would travel through a cycle of automation, whizzing along conveyor belts and through a maze of scanners as they're sorted by ZIP code and type of freight. Within minutes of their arrival, the packages would be loaded on another truck and delivered to points throughout the United States and Canada.
"There is no warehousing with this. It's strictly product in and product out," said Dave Berryman, chief planner for the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission. "This is a one-of-a-kind animal. It's unique in this region."
FedEx has a much smaller Express shipping center in Bethlehem Township, one of more than 500 such facilities nationwide where local residents can drop off packages.
What Cunningham called a FedEx Ground "megahub" would be one of just 32 regional shipping plants capable of serving several states.
FedEx Ground, based outside Pittsburgh in Moon Township, Allegheny County, is a $10 billion-a-year subsidiary of FedEx created to serve businesses and retailers that want to get merchandise to customers in one to five days, said FedEx Ground spokesman David Westrick. Trucking 5.6 million packages per day from its regional hubs and pickup stations nationwide, it is designed to be direct competition for UPS Ground.
The Morning Call, citing reliable sources, reported in July that FedEx Ground was eyeing 253 acres being sold by the Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority to the Rockefeller Group to raise money to pay debt.
But FedEx Ground refused to acknowledge its involvement until last week, when it filed plans with the LVPC and Allen Township for the site at Willowbrook Road and Race Street, just north of Lehigh Valley International Airport. According to those plans, FedEx proposes a 1 million-square-foot phase one building that would include 1,068 parking spaces for employees and an additional 1,200 spaces for tractor-trailers, vans and equipment.
The L-shaped building would have two finger buildings, where the trucks would deliver and ship packages.
A second phase calls for a 306,726-square-foot building with 1,348 parking spaces and 2,200 spaces for trucks and equipment.
A traffic study filed with the plan estimates that the hub and two nearby warehouses projected to open in 2017 and be occupied by to-be-determined tenants would add more than 14,000 vehicles to the roads -- including about 7,500 created by the FedEx plant. About 1,800 trucks and more than 12,000 cars per day would pass through, according to study performed by the Pidcock Co., Allentown.
It would be a drastic change for the area. Willowbrook Road currently gets just 10 tractor-trailers per day, according to the study.
To prevent gridlock, the study recommends that a third southbound lane be added to Airport Road -- from Route 22 to Race Street. It also recommends that Race Street be widened from two lanes to five lanes from Airport Road to Willowbrook Road. A section of Willowbrook Road -- from Race Street to the hub -- would be widened from two lanes to four.
In addition, intersections along Airport Road at Schoenersville Road and Postal Road would be improved.
All of that is estimated to cost roughly $25 million, and FedEx is in discussions with state, county and local officials to determine what grants are available and how much of the cost would be covered by the company.
The hub is expected to cost $175 million in private money, Cunningham said.
It's a lot to happen in just two years, but much of the skepticism about whether FedEx is serious was laid to rest when it filed its plan. The parking study is more than 700 pages and the site plan has 112 land development maps.
"It's an impressive amount of study, probably done at considerable expense," LVPC Executive Director Becky Bradley said. "They've put in the time and work on this one."
Despite Cunningham's optimism, the project has many hurdles to clear before hundreds of full-time jobs for truckers, computer operators, package handlers and managers can be brought to the site.
It will need planning approvals in the coming months from Allen Township and Hanover Township, Lehigh County, where some of the roadwork would be done, and land sale approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration for the airport land sale.
Allen Township officials did not return several phone messages this week.
The biggest hurdle would appear to be the roadwork, but much of the right-of-way needed for the road-widening is owned by the airport. Airport authority board members desperately want the project to happen, because it's required before they can close their $9.8 million land sale to the Rockefeller Group.
In fact, FedEx is in such a hurry to get the project started that its plans call for the building and parking spaces to be built around an airport radar tower. Moving the tower would require federal approvals that could take years, according to LVIA Executive Director Charles Everett Jr.
"This is one of those deals that's all about location and timing," Cunningham said. "For now, it would appear that the timing is right."
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FedEx Ground's proposed plant by the numbers
-- 800 jobs
-- $175 million in building costs
-- $25 million in roadwork
-- 7,480 more cars and trucks on the road per day.
Source: Lehigh Valley Planning Commission and Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp.
Copyright 2013 - The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)
