Lehigh Valley FedEx Ground terminal to be company's largest in U.S., VP says
Matt Assad and Anthony SalamoneContact ReportersOf The Morning Call
ALLENTOWN — The FedEx Ground terminal planned in Northampton County will bring hundreds of jobs to the Lehigh Valley and become the company's largest warehouse and logistics hub among 34 it operates nationwide, a company executive told members of the Valley business community Wednesday.
Stephanie Cohen, vice president of strategic planning with FedEx Ground, also told a lunchtime audience of about 250 people that job-seekers and e-tailers likely will have to wait until late 2018 before the megahub opens, several months later than previously announced.
Her remarks came during a panel discussion held by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce at its annual Transportation Summit in the Mack Trucks customer center in Allentown. The summit included local, state and federal transportation professionals, but the $335 million FedEx Ground project being built in Allen Township dominated the discussion.
FedEx Ground is scheduled to break ground later this month on a terminal capable of processing up to 75,000 packages an hour.
Cohen said the plant will be the largest in FedEx Ground's stable of megahubs, primarily because it will serve its largest population zone — the entire Eastern Seaboard.
"This area really is very well-situated, with access to the entire Northeast and Eastern Seaboard," Cohen said. "This will help us grow."
The e-commerce industry has brought in thousands of jobs and generally has been a boon to the Lehigh Valley in recent years. Such companies have found the Valley attractive because of its proximity to major highways and population centers.
Stitch Fix opened a distribution center this year in Lower Nazareth Township with plans to hire more than 500 employees. Stitch Fix's entry into the Valley follows online retailers Zulily and Wal-Mart, which have opened fulfillment centers in south Bethlehem. Meanwhile, Amazon.com operates a major distribution center in Breinigsville.
Cohen said most of the 600 FedEx Ground jobs will be full time, including clerical-administrative, packaging and maintenance positions.
FedEx Ground spokesman David Westrick has said most workers will make between $12 and $14 an hour, but managers and maintenance workers will be paid more.
FedEx officials also have said the plant will use hundreds of drivers, but they'll be contractors working for other companies. The plant will open at 800,000 square feet, but could be expanded to 1.1 million square feet if it reaches capacity.
Cohen declined to answer questions directly to The Morning Call, noting the publicly held company is in the middle of a "quiet period."
Robert Clark, New Jersey division administrator for the Federal Highway Administration, said the same e-commerce wave that's creating the need for facilities like the FedEx Ground plant also will fill the nation's highways with more trucks in the coming years.
"We're all facing the same challenges; it's congestion," Clark said. "We expect a 45 percent increase in freight. I don't think drones will be the answer."
As developers worked to get approvals over the last four years, the facility — on 260 acres just off Willow Brook Road on land that once belonged to the Lehigh Northampton Airport Authority — became a controversial project that pitted developers and airport officials against residents worried about the impact on a neighborhood where corn and soy has been farmed for decades.
While airport officials touted the $9.9 million land sale that has stabilized their books, and community leaders look forward to adding 600 jobs to the local economy in the first three years, residents worry about the noise and traffic from 14,000 additional vehicles a day, including 1,800 trucks. The added traffic is forcing FedEx to fund a $40 million project to widen roads from the plant site to Route 22.
Becky Bradley, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, gave early blessing to the project, since the site is in an urban development zone and its proximity to Lehigh Valley International Airport in neighboring Lehigh County made it prime territory.
"We had to understand the location is around good infrastructure," Bradley said, noting officials had already developed a plan to widen Route 22 from two to three lanes in each direction, with part of the project now underway.
Tony Iannelli, Chamber president and CEO who served as the panel moderator, asked Cohen if FedEx Ground was concerned about the "hoops and hurdles" taken to push the project through.
"I believe it is just part of the project," Cohen said. "A large project like this has many stakeholders."
Cohen said FedEx Ground operates 20 facilities in Pennsylvania with about 4,000 employees.
FedEx Ground, one of four operating companies of FedEx Corp., ranks 58th among Fortune 500 companies, with annual revenues of $47.4 billion. FedEx Ground includes more than 560 distribution facilities.
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