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With last week’s approval of preliminary and final land development for the second phase of NorthPoint Development’s massive Keystone Trade Center project, three new warehouses will rise on the roughly 1,800-acre Falls Township property.
Phase II of the Keystone Trade Center’s development includes warehouses four, five, and six, each totaling more than 1 million square feet.
The Falls Township Board of Supervisors approved the new structures at their meeting last week.
Officials said the three new buildings will total 3.1 million square feet across 188 acres of land close to Old Bordentown Road and South Port Avenue.
The first two warehouse buildings are up and the third is under construction, Falls Township Engineer Joseph Jones said.
The three buildings that are the first phase of the construction will be 1 million square feet.
Construction on the buildings for the second phase are expected to begin this year and be finished in 2023.
The supervisors green lit Phase I of the development last year, which includes construction of the first three warehouse buildings. Building three is under construction currently, according to Falls Township Engineer Joseph Jones.
In a township statement, Jeremy Michael, NorthPoint’s director of development, relayed the first tenant is set to occupy the first warehouse space by the end of 2022.
The developer will be “ramping up” their work next year, Michael said in the township statement.
Officials from NorthPoint Development, of Kansas City, have told the public that the Keystone Trade Center is designed to add as much as 15 million square feet of new warehouse space and 5,000 to 10,000 jobs with a total investment of $1.5 billion over the coming years. The plan is to develop the “largest e-commerce, logistics, and multi-model industrial project on the East Coast” with room for as many as 20 new buildings constructed on speculative basis.
NorthPoint Development bought the former U.S. Steel property at the end of 2020 for $160 million.
All three taxing bodies for the property – the Bucks County Commissioners, Falls Township, and the Pennsbury School District – agreed in 2020 to allow the site to become a Keystone Opportunity Investment Zone from January 1 and ending on December 31, 2035. The designation will give the developer tax breaks to encourage growth.