Mountain Top, Luzerne County, PA -
Mericle Commercial Real Estate Services has purchased the site of the former Poseidon Pools factory in Crestwood Industrial Park with an eye toward building “on spec” for a future occupant.
John Augustine, president and CEO of Penn's Northeast, said the transaction had “been in the works for a while” before it was completed in December. Luzerne County's property database noted that Mericle bought the property for $1.18 million from the Greater Wilkes-Barre Industrial Fund.
The fund is a subsidiary of the Greater Wyoming Valley Chamber of Commerce. President and CEO Lindsay Griffin said the chamber had owned the property since the early 1990s, and the Poseidon building was torn down in 2010. Quad 3 engineers worked with the chamber to redesign the site, relocating the driveway away from the intersection of Crestwood Drive and Elmwood Road for safety purposes, according to Quad 3's website. After demolishing the old building, they created two pads that can now be built on.
Augustine noted that the Poseidon building was actually one of the first buildings in the industrial park, dating back to the 1950s when it opened as Eberhard Faber. At that time, Crestwood Industrial Park was one of the first industrial parks in the region, and there had even been talk of building an exit that led from Interstate 81 directly to the industrial park, but that never materialized, Augustine added.
Eberhard Faber, a pencil company, moved out in the 1980s, and Poseidon began manufacturing and distributing pools from the site.
The site was part of the acreage that needed to be cleaned up due to contamination by trichloroethene (TCE), an industrial greaser used at the former Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation facility. The Environmental Protection Agency led that cleanup effort beginning in 1993, and the cleanup process has since been completed, leaving the land open for re-occupancy.
Augustine said industrial parks have been booming in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
“There are very few actual buildings available,” he said. “We had a banner year last year.”
This region has done so well with occupying industrial space because spaces here are “$1 to $2 per square foot cheaper than in the Lehigh Valley, and they're running out of land” in the Lehigh Valley as well, Augustine said.
Crestwood Industrial Park is almost full, so Mericle's purchase of the old Poseidon Pools property opens up a new spot at a good time, and “the transfer tax helps the school district and the municipality,” Augustine added.
Augustine said the uptick in local industrial park occupancy is partly due to increased e-commerce distribution. But there has also been a recent increase in manufacturing in order to “avoid supply chain issues because if you can't get it, you can't sell it,” he said.
Griffin added that the sale is a boon for the entire region.
“We are pleased to see the property purchased by Mericle as it can now be utilized for progressive community and business growth,” she said. “This provides more property for new tenants, jobs and further economic development of our region.”
