Mericle Commercial Real Estate Services, the developer and owner of CenterPoint Commerce & Trade Park in Jenkins Township and Pittston Township, Pennsylvania has announced plans to construct six buildings on speculation in the park in 2019.
Speculative buildings are those conducted by a developer without any tenant leases in place.
The new industrial and flex buildings will range in size from 42,000 square feet to 310,000 square feet. Site work is well underway on the parcels and steel will begin arriving early this summer.
Upon completion of the buildings in late 2019, there will be 43 buildings in CenterPoint totaling approximately 10.7 million square feet.
The six new buildings will total 802,000 square feet and will complement four large industrial buildings recently constructed by Mericle in CenterPoint that can accommodate tenants needing from 200,000 square feet to 1,000,000 square feet.
Mericle President Robert Mericle said the brisk economy coupled with the types of space requests his firm has been receiving, led to the decision to construct the six buildings.
“For the past several years, there has been strong interest from distribution and manufacturing firms needing bulk industrial space in excess of 200,000 square feet” Mericle said. “However, lately we have seen a noticeable increase in requests for smaller spaces ranging from 6,000 square feet to 60,000 square feet. Most of our small spaces in CenterPoint are occupied so our 2019 projects will help us meet the needs of a wider variety of businesses.”
Mericle said all of the new buildings can be divided into smaller spaces. Several will be flex buildings making them suitable for manufacturing, distribution, office, and medical firms.
“There are many companies that lease space in outdated buildings,” Mericle said. “They are hampered by low ceilings, narrow column spacing, tight truck courts, and lighting and heating systems that are not energy efficient. Some are even located in buildings in residential neighborhoods that are located a considerable distance from the nearest highway. Our new CenterPoint buildings will give them the opportunity to move into much better, energy-efficient space, immediately adjacent to two interstates, at a lower overall operating cost.”
CenterPoint Commerce & Trade Park is located less than one mile from I-81 and I-476 and is just 10 minutes from Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. The 51 tenants in CenterPoint employ approximately 5,500 people. Robert Mericle said he expects park employment to rise to about 7,500 upon full occupancy of the 10.7 million square feet.