Panattoni Pours Concrete Foundation for Million-Square-Foot Distribution Center in Pennsylvania’s I-81 Corridor
Tuesday, February 20th 2024
Panattoni Development Co. has begun pouring concrete for the second and final phase of the Rausch Creek Logistics Center, a massive new logistics facility built on the site of a long-decommissioned strip and subsurface coal mine in Tremont, Pennsylvania.
Rausch Creek Logistics Center’s second phase will measure just over 1 million square feet and is listed as fully available for lease by CBRE, which brokered the original sale of the development site to Panattoni in 2021. The property is less than a one-minute drive from Exit 107 on Pennsylvania Interstate 81, a critical corridor for distribution centers serving consumers throughout the Northeastern U.S., including residents of New York City, Philadelphia and the Baltimore/Washington area.
The large industrial property will have a 40-foot clear ceiling height and 210 trailer parking spaces that will be expandable to m327. Other features include 177 dock positions, four drive-in doors, cross-dock configuration, LED lighting and an ESFR sprinkler system. Financially, it offers a 10-year Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance Act or LERTA tax abatement, which provides tax breaks for commercial properties in specific areas to encourage the redevelopment of old or deteriorating properties with property taxes held flat at 75% for 10 years, with a total savings of $8,543,010.
This marks the largest industrial project directly adjacent to Interstate 81 that has poured concrete in Pennsylvania in almost two years. The last project to do so was the first phase of Panattoni’s Rausch Creek Logistics Center, which took place ,during the spring of 2022. The completed first phase was fully leased by Amazon a year later.
As part of an effort to cut costs, Amazon has closed more than 70 of its distribution centers across the U.S. since the ,beginning of 2022. But in a clear demonstration of the region’s strategic importance to e-commerce retailers delivering goods to East Coast consumers, Amazon has not closed any of its 13 distribution centers within 20 miles of I-81 in Pennsylvania. In fact, 2023 was the e-commerce giant’s most active year on record for industrial leasing along I-81, with ,three giant leases signed totaling over 3 million square feet.