The Falls Township Planning Commission denied a proposal for a 976,300-square-foot warehouse with 60,000 of office space along the Delaware River.
The developer at Tuesday evening’s meeting was asking for preliminary approval for the plans and requested several variances, including for wetlands, woodlands, and stormwater management. The planning commission is an advisory committee for the supervisors.
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Stalwart Equities, the developer, owns the former Solvay and part of the Rogers Foam Corporation tracts along East Post Road and Biles Creek at 2300 Pennsylvania Avenue in the Morrisville section of the township. Those properties would be where the new logistics facility would be constructed.
The site is in Falls Township, but it borders Morrisville Borough.
The supervisors last year changed the zoning for the properties.
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The warehouse proposal has been on the books since 2020, but it has moved slowly as the developer has reworked their plans.
The facility would be next to the Delaware River and require destroying some existing wetlands. The destroyed wetlands around an unnamed tributary at the site would be replaced by larger wetlands on another portion of the property, a representative for the developer said.
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The developer said they worked with federal and state officials to create a plan that improves the habitat and adds tidal wetlands along the river. The developer pledged to double the amount of wetlands on the currently-vacant property.
The property is home to the cricket frog, which is not very common in Pennsylvania. The developer said they were working with state environmental officials to protect and improve it habitat for the creature at the site.
The property’s location on South Pennsylvania Avenue has previously drawn concern that truck traffic could stream from the facility onto Morrisville Borough’s small roads. The developer said signage would be put up advising truck drivers not to go through the borough.
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John Haney, a member of the planning commission, said he has seen similar measures taken at other similar facilities and truck drivers just ignore the signs.
The main entrance for the facility would be on South Pennsylvania Avenue. It would allow room for the stacking of trucks and have a guardhouse.
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The majority of the site sits on a flood plain and developer planned to truck in large amounts of soil to level the site for construction. The developer’s representatives said they had worked with the township engineer and other government agencies to create a plan that would adequately handle water, including runoff that would flow into the Delaware River.
Haney also asked the representatives from the developer about a slowdown in the large warehouse market. They responded that demand for these types of facilities remains strong in the area.
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No tenant has been booked for the proposed warehouse, but several companies have reportedly shown interest.
As a former industrial property, there was an environmental cleanup at the site and some ongoing environmental safety measures, representatives for the developer said.
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The warehouse would not be far from the massive Keystone Trade Center project. Developers of that massive site have told the public the Keystone Trade Center is designed to add as much as 15 million square feet of new warehouse space and 5,000 to 10,000 jobs with a total investment of $1.5 billion over the coming years. The plan is to develop the “largest e-commerce, logistics, and multi-model industrial project on the East Coast” with room for as many as 20 new buildings constructed on speculative basis.
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