BEAR — J.G. Petrucci Company, Inc. is in the middle of building a new speculative warehouse, not far from the Dot Foods redistribution center in Bear, with plans to draw manufacturers or distributors eager for space close to the Interstate 95 corridor.
As site work has already started, the 361,700 square-foot warehouse is designed to attract either one large tenant or multiple tenants through the division of space by the time the warehouse is completed ideally by the third quarter of 2025. J.G. Petrucci has signed an agreement with the real estate investment firm The Davis Companies on the project.
CBRE industrial and office space broker Dan Rattay has been hired to market the site, according to J.G. Petrucci representatives.
“The response so far has been very positive, but typically we see the tenant activity ramp up when the project is nearing completion,” Petrucci Project Executive Peter Polt told the Delaware Business Times on Friday. “We’re really excited, and we’re just getting started.”
Plans for the 28-acre site were first filed in spring 2022, showing a warehouse that would be parallel to the Norfolk Southern Railroad and would include 68 loading docks and another 267 car parking spaces. Polt added that the warehouse would also include two drive-in doors, 30-foot candle lighting and more than 3,150 square feet of office space.
Polt said that Petrucci had been working on this project for just under three years, as it was looking for another entryway into the Delaware market.
“We’ve identified it as a growth area for our company, and we really like it for the industrial and multifamily asset classes. When we were looking into prospects, this site was particularly attractive. No. 1, it’s in an industrial park so the infrastructure is there. And we like that it has access back to I-95 and there’s a proven industrial market around it.”
The warehouse, when complete, would be the second in the Peoples Industrial Park, owned by custom home builders R.C. Peoples Inc. Dot Foods was the first tenant in 2019 when it opened its $37 million distribution center that would go on to employ 125 people in its first year.
Within two miles, there is also the Delaware Logistics Center, which includes four industrial buildings with tenants like Snow Joe, Dart Container and Amazon.
Petrucci finalized the sale of the land in September for $10.2 million. Polt declined to comment on the value of the project, only noting that it was a “substantial investment.”
“When we evaluate markets from a logistics perspective, we found that Delaware’s labor market was a strong component. I think it’s also a business-friendly state, and we think it has tremendous growth potential,” he said. “It’s what we consider at the core of our market for eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It’s just an extension of what we do well.”
J.G. Petrucci Company is a development company that focuses on design and construction of office, industrial and commercial spaces. With offices in Asbury, N.J. and Bethlehem, Pa., Petrucci has delivered more than 800 projects to market across various sectors. That includes the Peachtree Health Group, a $20 million assisted living project in Habreson. The firm also owns six million square feet of commercial and industrial space as well as holding land in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Meanwhile, the Davis Companies holds $12.9 billion in asset value through investing in several properties, with 37.4 million square feet across the nation. That includes life science and health care space, as well as industrial, distribution and retail. In addition, the Davis Companies hold close to 6,000 residential units. This project also marks the second project in 10 years Davis Companies and Petrucci will collaborate on – the first was a 350,000 square-foot warehouse in the Lehigh Valley.
When asked about what drew Petrucci to build again in Delaware, a decade later, Polt pointed to the site’s prime location as an exit to Delaware Route 1, and its ease of access to the U.S. Route 40, I-95, I-295 and major ports within a three-hour drive.
“Delaware is in the heart of the mid-Atlantic region, and it has great access to those ports and there’s hubs from big companies like Amazon and FedEx close by. It’s in the heart of what we consider a core market,” Polt said. “We’re big believers in Delaware.”
