The Falls Township Board of Supervisors approved an agreement with the firm that wants to undertake a massive redevelopment of U.S. Steel property during a special meeting Monday evening.
The meeting was an extension of last week’s session where NorthPoint Development, of Kansas City, provided the supervisors and general public an overview of their plans for 1,800-acre Keystone Industrial Port Complex site that they are set to buy from U.S. Steel for an undisclosed sum sometime this month. (See the full slide deck)
Township Solicitor Michael Clarke explained that the agreement will be a step that will pave the way to NorthPoint Development submitting land development plans for the first phases of the planned Keystone Trade Center project that could bring as many as 5,000 to 10,000 new jobs over the next decade.
“They want to cover certain things as it relates to the entire site and not each individual project,” Clarke told the supervisors.
“Each time they want to develop a particular parcel or a project on a particular parcel they will be going through the regular land development process,” he said. “If there are zoning issues, they’ll have to go through zoning.”
Clarke explained that NorthPoint Development will conduct a large traffic study for the site and also have to outline how new phase of the development will impact traffic.
Last week, Jed Momot, the chief strategy officer for NorthPoint Development, explained that the Keystone Trade Center project is designed to add as much as 15 million square feet of new warehouse space 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.
Previously, the developer has stated they plan to construct new warehouses ranging in size from 200,000 square feet to up to 2 million square feet on open space on the land. Some buildings could be as high as 100 feet if needed.
So far, NorthPoint Development has not announced any companies that are interested in the site, but the firm has previously developed distribution centers for Home Depot, Staples, Walmart, Amazon, FedEx, XPO Logistics, Chewy.com, General Motors, and Ulta.
At their meeting next week, the supervisors will look at recognizing the Morrisville Municipal Authority as the provider of all water and sanitary sewer-related utilities for the large property that previously had its own utility services.
At the meeting last week, attorney Michael Meginniss of Begley, Carlin, and Mandio, who is representing NorthPoint Development, stated the developer is looking to submit plans for the first phases of development within weeks. Momot later stated that work could begin as soon as spring.
The developer isn’t just looking to construct new buildings, but they have said they want to provide updates to infrastructure and landscaping.
Clarke said the township is talking with NorthPoint Development on a municipal services agreement that would cover some costs for the township taking on more of a responsibility for stormwater management, roads, and regular police patrols at the site. Presently, U.S. Steel handles most of those functions.
NorthPoint Development officials said they found the U.S. Steel site so attractive because of its access to a number of highways, ports, airports, and railways.
Momot said last week that about 34 million people live within a three-hour truck drive and 40 percent of the nation’s population lives within a day-long drive of the site.