Mericle Commercial Real Estate Services has purchased 29 acres in the East Mountain Corporate Center, Plains Township from The Greater Wilkes-Barre Development Corporation. Mericle will combine the newly acquired land with adjacent land it already owns as part of its overall development strategy for the corporate center.
Mericle Vice President of Marketing Jim Cummings said the acquisition gives the company a total of 77 acres in the park for future development of office buildings and sites.
“In April of 2008, we announced plans to construct a series of speculative office buildings on land we owned in the park,” he said. “Since that time, and despite the recession, we constructed four such buildings on speculation. This land acquisition strengthens our commitment to developing Class A office space and sites in the Greater Wilkes-Barre area.”
Altogether, Mericle has developed eight of the 10 office buildings in the park. The companies in the eight buildings have created approximately 2,500 jobs according to Cummings. Those buildings total approximately 500,000 square feet he said.
Cummings said the 29 acres have severe constraints that make development very challenging. “The land has sat idle since the park opened more than 20 years ago” he said. “The property is rocky with very steep terrain and will be very difficult to develop. However, we think that our in-house team of experienced engineers and heavy equipment operators makes us uniquely qualified to get at least some productive use out of the land.”
He said Mericle’s development plan for the park shows as many as seven future office buildings. “We will continue the monitor the economy and the types of requests we are receiving before we select the exact size and location of our next spec office building in the park,” he said.
The East Mountain Corporate Center is located off of Exit 170A of Interstate 81. Major park tenants include Geisinger Health System, RCN, C3i, Borton Lawson Engineering, Cumulus, and Mericle’s corporate headquarters.
Mericle Commercial Real Estate Services, founded by Rob Mericle, is a vertically-integrated company with more than 200 in-house professionals with expertise in all aspects of commercial real estate development and construction. The Mericle team includes licensed architects, land planners, professional engineers, surveyors, licensed electricians, plumbers, carpenters, certified public accountants, in-house legal counsel, leasing and marketing professionals, licensed brokers, property managers, and more.