SEAFORD — A team of developers that are focusing efforts in Kent and Sussex Counties now aim to invest $75 million into their next project: a massive industrial park complex in Seaford.
In the past five years, Seaford has attracted notice for burgeoning warehouse projects like the
Western Sussex Business Campus as other developers look to different options in the Seaford area such as Ross Industrial Park. Regional developers Travis Martin and Bret and Kirk Davis now also have designs to build another new business park with 1.2 million square feet of warehouse space on a 128-acre tract along U.S. Route 13.
The Davis brothers own development and brokerage firm
Davis Strategic in Salisbury, Md., while Martin is a rising developer coming in on the heels of success of the Frankford Business Park off U.S. Route 113 two years before. The trio recently formed a partnership, starting with plans to build an industrial park in West Dover in 2024.
Bret Davis of Davis Strategic, said that the Seaford project will be built in phases. The first to be built will be three warehouses ranging between 88,000 square feet and 120,000 square feet each in size with eight tentatively planned for the site.
The largest warehouse planned for Seaford Industrial Park is at least 400,000 square feet in size.
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Seaford Industrial Park is proposed to have 1.2 million square feet of warehouse space off U.S. Route 13. | PHOTO COURTESY OF DELAWARE SMALL BUSINESS DIVISION[/caption]
“With a developer, we go with what we want. But that building is 10 acres in size. So, the magnitude of this site is that we can bring in a sizable percentage of physical jobs,” Bret Davis told the Council on Development Finance (CDF) on Monday. “We’ll be bringing a ton of direct jobs to this site which is critical to the city.”
For comparison, the size of the warehouse built by KRM Development Corporation for the
Western Sussex Business Campus is 77,000 square feet and will be one of two on that site which the city has been working on for years.
To support infrastructure build-out at the Seaford Industrial Park site, CDF, the state’s job investment board, approved a grant from the taxpayer-backed Site Readiness Fund worth $1.9 million on Monday. The grant will help cover the cost for various infrastructure projects to get the site shovel-ready – and will be paid out as a reimbursement once the developer has paid for the improvements first.
Even though the CDF signed off on the grant, the Seaford Industrial Park still has a way to go before it can be realized. No plans have been presented to the public or the Seaford city government and the developers are currently in negotiations for the 128 acres of land.
In addition, the Seaford Industrial Park will also have to work through the state planning process as well as the Sussex Conservation District.
In the past, Seaford was once known as a bustling hub on the western side of Sussex County with DuPont’s nylon plant employing around 4,500 people in the 1960s and 1970s. But when the company scaled down operations, it left Invistaas well as a string of warehouses, behind.
Nylon manufacturer Invista still maintains operations in Seaford, but nowhere near the amount of employees DuPont once claimed in the busy town.
But in recent times, Seaford has become a gateway to Maryland and Virginia’s eastern shore as well as southern Delaware for distribution needs, instead of the employment hub of days gone by. Amazon bought a warehouse there in 2021 and several smaller complexes have been in the works over the last decade.
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Brett Davis of development and brokerage firm Davis Strategic in Salisbury, Md., talks about plans for a possible warehouse complex north of Seaford. during Monday's Council on Development Finance meeting. | DBT PHOTO BY KATIE TABELING[/caption]
Taking a regional view, Davis said that he sees that Seaford is on the rise for now, but he added that some areas of land may still be considered too rural, leaving major retailers unsure of the buy in.
“We’re about three-quarters of a mile too far up north, so [this project] will lose to every other location on Route 13,” he told the council. “If there’s several large retailers that are working on sites, they’re never going to pick a site that’s three-quarters of a mile apart.”
“I would say in the next 10 to 15 years, it’s realistic,” he added. “There’s already a central retail [hub] but not anything large scale commercial space like this available in Sussex County.”
But that does not deter Davis or Martin. After developing the Frankford Business Park and seeing a high lease rate, Martin told the
Delaware Business Times in 2023 he was surprised and excited about the demand for medium flex space he was likely to continue developing.
So far, that demand continues to hold, as Martin and the Davises have apparently signed a lease for a company for its budding new
industrial park on Lafferty Lane in Dover while they work on developing Seaford. Six more are currently in negotiations with the developers for the Dover location.
All told, both of their Dover and Seaford industrial parks could bring 300 jobs, according to Davis.