After five years of planning, construction on a massive
$140 million upscale shopping center in Lower Macungie Township should start in
the spring.
At a Commercial Real Estate Women Lehigh Valley event
Tuesday at the township’s municipal building, Hamilton Crossings developers
Jeremy Fogel and Tim Harrison recounted the many challenges they faced in
moving the project forward to final approvals: plan revisions, permits and
multiple variances, severe flooding problems that needed fixing and that the
570,000-square-foot site sits on two abandoned mines.
Now with the Valley’s first Whole Foods and other big box
tenants such as Costco, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Target, plus scores of
upscale retailers such as Nordstrom Rack signed on to occupy Hamilton
Crossings, the center is nearly 100 percent leased, the developers said, and
should have a grand opening in July 2016.
“It’s gonna happen,” Harrison said. “I think Hamilton
Crossings can be described as a shared vision to create a first-class retail
center.”
The project, at the intersection with Krocks Road near
the Route 222 Bypass, will bring 495 construction jobs and, after the center
opens, 619 full-time jobs and about 300 part-time jobs, said Harrison, a
developer from Staten Island, N.Y.
“A lot of these jobs are living-wage jobs,” he said.
As an example, Costco wages would be about $20.89 per
hour or $43,452 per year, and Whole Foods would pay workers $15 per hour,
Harrison said.
“We are going to have a nice assortment of
tenants,” Fogel said. “What we have been able to achieve here, over time,
coming out of the recession, is ‘best-in class’ tenants.”
Fogel is a partner in the project and
executive vice president and director of development for The Goldenberg Group
in Blue Bell.
Though the developers said they could not confirm any
other tenants, the center should have 33 stores. No bookstores or electronic
stores are expected to be part of the mix.
The goal is to create a community for all residents and
people who visit the center, Harrison said.
Hamilton Crossings will include public gathering places,
with first-class architecture and building materials and special attention paid
to road frontages, Fogel said.
The developers are looking to make productive use of
outdoor spaces, such as a gathering area to the north of Target that could be
used for business presentations and meetings in the middle of a shopping
center, he said.
With 2½ miles of walking and biking trails, all connected
to the township’s trail system, the center includes enhanced landscaping and is
looking to encourage pedestrian traffic.
Fogel said he sees an untapped retail market in Lower
Macungie Township, which he said lacks high-end retailers. In the past, many
high-end retailers located along MacArthur Road in Whitehall Township, he said.
“The location we have allows them [retailers] to serve a
broad market,” Fogel said. “It allows it [Whole Foods] to become more of a
regional supermarket. Retailers are looking for household spending and
population. The Lehigh Valley, for whatever reason, has been ignored for a lot
of major retailers.”
Source: LVB.com
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