A controversial warehouse project planned for North Whitehall Township has received a negative recommendation from the township’s planning commission.
After a mostly civil four-hour meeting with several public comments, the board Thursday night voted 6-0 against the proposed Nexus 78 warehouse near the intersection of Route 309 and Orefield Road. Developer Trammell Crow Co. wants to build a 501,405-square-foot building that is 50 feet high. Two members were absent and one was recused from the vote.
The plan will go before township supervisors Monday. They will decide whether to accept or reject the proposal outright.
Board members and the majority of residents who filled the meeting room at Lehigh Carbon Community College were skeptical of the plan, especially with the potential for increased traffic and noise pollution.
Representatives from the developer said the warehouse will be built while PennDOT makes improvements to Route 309, including reconfiguring the intersection with Orefield Road to include left-turn lanes. They added they expect an average of five trucks an hour to leave the facility.
Trammell Crow is looking for approval so it can begin construction by the end of the year with tentative completion in spring 2027.
Before the vote, planning commission Chair Brian Howith wondered aloud why Trammell Crow would depend on PennDOT getting the improvements, known as the “betterment project,” completed in a timely manner. He said the plan is “incomplete.”
“We’re hanging a lot of weight on the betterment project,” Howith said. “We don’t have the rights of way for it, and as was commented, it may never come. I think while we can all sit and have all levels of confidence or hope that it happens, there’s no assurances. I have zero confidence in PennDOT in promulgating something soon.”
Howith said there are other types of residential or commercial development that could be built on the 71.1-acre property.
The plan calls for a two-way driveway to the warehouse from Route 309 and an exit-only ramp to Orefield Road.
Benjamin Guthrie, senior project manager for Traffic Planning and Design Inc., said PennDOT turned down a traffic light at the entrance.
“Because at this particular location, the traffic signal would only provide access to one driveway,” he said. “(PennDOT) did not support the installation of the signal. They felt that because the secondary access has been designed to allow existing traffic to use the existing traffic signal at Orefield Road, that that would be the appropriate place for drivers to make their left turn.”
However, trucks would still be allowed to make left turns onto Route 309 southbound from the driveway.
Attorney Catherine Durso, representing Trammell Crow, said truck drivers couldn’t be forced to use the Orefield Road exit, though signs would be placed recommending them to do so.
Another concern was traffic coming in and out of the nearby Orefield Middle School and the Parkland School District’s plan to build a garage area for its bus and van fleet across Orefield Road from the warehouse exit.
Assistant Superintendent Timothy Chorones expressed the district’s opposition to the project.
“The district opposes the plan to have truck traffic utilize the proposed road connecting to Orefield Road, which is in conflict with what your presentation was earlier today,” Chorones said. “The district also poses the increased truck traffic that has the potential to impact the safe transport of close to 10,000 students across the Parkland School District to all of our schools.”
Durso replied that the developer had been working with the school district for two years.
“I just would like the record to reflect that the school district has been aware of this project going back at least two years, if not more, when the developer originally approached the school district to try to rectify the existing issues they have with their sewage system at Orefield Middle School,” she said. “And not at that time, nor since, until tonight, did the school district express any concerns.”
During the public comment period, resident Brian Sullivan wondered how school buses would be able to pass by tractor trailers going in the opposite direction with only a few inches to spare.
“I don’t want my kid on that bus,” he said.
Orefield Road resident Sam Claudio, who lives near the project site, said he has seen his wife try to navigate her car to Route 309 and have to get out of the way of passing trucks.
“This is not a once in a while,” he said, “and I can see the corner every single day I sit on my front porch, and I can watch this happen every single day, multiple times a day. There is no way that you are going to have increased truck traffic on Orefield Road and it not be an increase to the amount of safety hazards.”
Other residents said the noise from trucks backing up, using their horns and slamming doors at all hours of the day and night would be a detriment to their quality of life.
“This is what you’re going to hear all day long,” said David Wirth, who lives about a mile from the site.
Planning commission members expressed skepticism about the project at January’s meeting, also citing traffic, noise and pollution as their top concerns. Traffic studies from the developer indicated that 150 trucks could enter and exit the facility within a 24-hour period.
The project was also met with doubt from members of the СŷƵ Planning Commission when they reviewed it in May 2024. The LVPC said the location’s distance from Route 22 and Interstate 78 was a major concern.
Morning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at ejones@mcall.com.
