What is Even Going On?

Who We Are

This website is a home base for Easton, Palmer, Forks, and Wilson residents, business owners, civic and social groups, attorneys, and regional and national environmental groups. We are demanding a halt to the “Easton Commerce Park” warehouse project. It does not fit the area and its design does not meet the highest long-term standards for protecting residents’ health, natural resources and habitats, or the sustainability of surrounding roads and infrastructure.

What is Proposed

Scannell Properties has proposed building a one million square foot warehouse “Easton Commerce Park” at 1525 Wood Avenue, near the 13th Street exit off of Route 22. A majority of the 106-acre property is located in Wilson Borough, with the remainder being in Easton and Palmer.

Why We Object

Residents of Wilson, Easton, Forks. and Palmer are concerned with: traffic, road deterioration, toxic runoff, air quality and asthma, creek contamination, soil contamination, and noise pollution, for good reason.

Transportation, Roads, Traffic

13th and 25th street exits off Rt.22 are already congested as is the NJ/PA joint toll bridge, all are unequipped to handle an additional daily increase of hundreds of tractor trailers will be adversely impacted.

The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission’s Comprehensive Planning Committee (LVPC) reviewed the proposal, raised numerous concerns, and offered a variety of site and development mitigation recommendations. It is cause for serious concern that the LVPC’s careful review is being disregarded. We wish to underscore some of the LVPC’s main conclusions (see the LVPC review letter).

In summary LVPC says that “The size of the proposed building, at more than 1 million square feet, greatly surpasses the scale of surrounding developments…” “The proposal has been designed to maximize the building size, disregarding site topography and existing natural resources, including steep slopes and woodlands that are critical to supporting wildlife habitats adjacent to the Bushkill Creek” (p.2).

“Additionally, roadways in the vicinity were not built to withstand the impacts of such a high volume of tractor-trailers and are currently inadequate to accommodate the proposal (p.2).”

“The project site contains a variety of natural resources, including woodlands, hydrographic features, [and] steep slopes of 15%-25% and is identified as a Natural Heritage Inventor[y] Supporting Landscape.”

“Avoiding steep slope and woodland areas by utilizing smaller building footprints and increasing the buffer distances between development and natural resources would ‘maximize preservation of woodlands critical habitats and natural resources… (p3).”

LVPC’s conclusion is that “As proposed, the development does not align with FutureLV: The Regional Plan because it does not match development intensity with sustainable transportation infrastructure capacity…” LVPC required the development plans be revised and resubmitted; we are not aware that any such revision has occurred, further noting …If the project moves forward as proposed, development impacts should be mitigated to protect the public health, safety, and welfare, and to ensure the lowest impact and most sustainable site design in the fiscal interest of the developer, Borough, City, and Township.”

“… as it stands, my concerns that [Easton Commerce Park] could be a bad thing, by far outweigh those potential good things.“
– LVPC Vice Chairman Christopher Amato. (Lehigh Valley News 6/26/24)

Air Quality

According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), diesel exhaust causes adverse “health effects ranging from irritation of the eyes and nose, headaches and nausea, to respiratory disease and lung cancer” (https://www.osha.gov/diesel-exhaust).
As per an October 2024 report from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, toxic releases into the air within one square mile of the site are already the 86th percentile of the USA, diesel particulate matter is already in the 75th percentile, and asthma is already in the 78th percentile.
Adding hundreds of trucks daily to this already environmentally distressed area will further damage the quality of life of residents.

Quality of Life

Fire and EMS services will be greatly hampered in their ability to respond to the warehouse or other local emergencies due to a traffic overflow.
Bus routes and school schedules may have to be altered to accommodate the warehouse traffic.
High school students – new drivers – drive Wood Ave on their way to and from school, adding hundreds of trucks directly affects the safety of these new drivers.
The per capita income of residents within a one mile radius of the site is $36,000, making it alarmingly clear that those with lesser means will bear the biggest burden.
There is no indication that any warehouse jobs for locals would be created, or that local builders would be used in the creation of the warehouse as there is no tennant or buyer.
Scannell Properties is leaning on state and federal funds for potential road updates, meaning we, the taxpayers, are going to foot the bill while they will reap the profits. They have made it clear that they are not concerned for the community or tax-payers.

Who is Scannell Properties?

“Founded 30 years ago, Scannell Properties is an Indiana-based, privately held real estate development and investment company that focuses on build-to-suit* and speculative development** of industrial, office, government, and multi-family facilities throughout the U.S. and Canada. Since its inception in 1990, Scannell has completed over 300 development projects totaling 63 million SF in 44 states and 3 Canadian provinces. In 2018, Scannell expanded their industrial development operations into Europe with an office in London, focusing on the core markets of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the U.K. The value of all their projects is estimated at over $5 Billion.” (www.scannellproperties.com)

*Build to suit is a type of commercial real estate lease in which the land owner agrees to construct a property according to the requirements of the lessee. The lessee agrees to lease the property once construction is complete.

**Speculative development basically means purchasing a piece of land or undertaking a construction project without any strict pledges regarding what they will end up doing with it.

In summary, residents, businesses, and environmental groups who will have to deal with the long-term, generational effects of the ill-conceived warehouse cash-grab, as well as those responsible for reviewing this proposed development have many concerns. We will continue to monitor this activity and provide the reports, plans, and documents to the public through this website and by hosting coalition meetings as well as keeping the public informed on local board meetings that deal with the issue. Sign up to get involved and stay up to date by emailing a request to stopwoodwarehouse@gmail.com

Although we are aware that this project has the potential to mitigate a toxic prior use and provide badly needed financial support to the borough of Wilson, the toxicity, massive footprint and 24/7 heavy activity also require a more strenuous level of design to support residents’ health, protection of wildlife and natural resources, and sustainability of surrounding infrastructure.

For more information and/or to join our cause please sign up for our mailing list by sending a request to: stopwoodwarehouse@gmail.com