River Pointe Logistics' proposed River Pointe Commerce Park includes 12 buildings totaling nearly 5.9 million square feet on about 804 acres bound by River Road, Potomac Street and Pine Tree Lane — land that is zoned for industrial uses in Upper Mount Bethel Township.

A proposed industrial park with 12 buildings totaling nearly 5.9 million square feet on 800-plus acres in the Slate Belt will require significant investments in traffic improvements and potentially wastewater treatment to be successful.

That’s the read of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, which on Thursday night discussed an early stage, sketch-plan review of the proposed River Pointe Commerce Park in Upper Mount Bethel Township.

The costs of transportation improvements and maintenance and plans to handle the wastewater, including industrial waste, through a privately operated on-site treatment plant generated concerns during Thursday night’s discussion about burdens being borne by taxpayers, even as the project is being promoted as a major revenue-generator for the region.

“The potential for this development to pay for itself now or into the future is questionable, and understanding that public subsidy is limited or non-existent is an important factor to manage long-term impacts on the development itself and the public,” LVPC staff wrote in their review of the plan.

The developer, Lou Pektor, was listed as a participant in Thursday night’s meeting held via videoconference. The principal with property owner River Pointe Logistics Center LLC did not comment. Nor did he return a call for comment Friday morning through his Bethlehem-based Ashley Development Corp. The commission referred to the project as RPL Industrial Park.

The project represents a major investment in industrial and warehouse space in the Lehigh Valley, an area that has seen millions of square feet of these types of developments built in recent years.

LVPC data shared Thursday night shows Lehigh and Northampton county municipalities have approved, from 2016 through June 2022, industrial space totaling 4,439,952 square feet and 29,234,070 square feet of warehouse space. That’s in addition to 2,228,370 square feet of industrial and 20,051,206 square feet of warehouse proposed between 2017 and last month but not yet approved, according to the planning commission.

The two counties’ total industrial and warehouse inventory as of June 2022 stands at 110,011,245 square feet built and another 6,210,345 square feet under construction, breaking down to 64,115,183 square feet in Lehigh County (plus 474,547 square feet under construction) and 45,896,062 square feet in Northampton County (plus 5,735,798 square feet under construction) with vacancy rates as of June running at 3.5% and 7.1%, respectively, according to an LVPC analysis of data from the CBRE real estate company.

None of those figures include the 5,873,000 square feet of manufacturing, services and warehousing proposed for River Pointe, said Becky Bradley, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission. A 420,000-square-foot industrial building at 303 Demi Road that is associated with the park is included in the figures for what’s been proposed to date.

“Obviously this is the largest development that I believe the commission has seen in at least the last decade and I could probably safely say in the last 30 years or more,” Bradley said.

Pektor’s River Pointe project first presented in February 2020 has pitted officials and residents who welcome the potential jobs and tax-base growth against those who think it’s too big and a threat to the township’s rural nature and nearby Delaware River. The property is within a Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance zone that forgives taxes on the land as developed for one year then phases the new tax revenue in by 10% each year until it’s fully taxed after a decade. Upper Mount Bethel Township also created a Neighborhood Improvement District for the land to levy a special fee within River Pointe to go toward improvements of the township-owned Community Park on Potomac Street, a new township municipal building and an environmental center to be built in the township.

The property is bound by River Road to the northeast, Pine Tree Lane to the southeast and Potomac Street to the southwest, just southwest of Upper Mount Bethel’s border with Portland. It’s zoned for industrial uses but sitting undeveloped, said Martin Pinter, chairman of the township board of supervisors.

“So we have the opportunity here to change this and use the land for the good of the community by bringing in high-paying jobs that will help the Slate Belt and beyond our township in regards to the median family income and also support our school system, which desperately needs money,” Pinter said during Thursday night’s meeting.

Supervisor John Bermingham also spoke, saying township officials are paying attention to the concerns raised by the commission and pledging to continue to work to address them.

Other speakers who addressed the plan included Charles Cole, a retired environmental engineer who now lives on his Upper Mount Bethel family farm and has been a vocal opponent of River Pointe. Among the issues he seized on are the projections that at full buildout, the industrial park will generate an estimated 15,475 passenger car trips and 3,015 truck trips in a typical weekday, according to the planning commission. Those traffic impact study numbers anticipate 75% of the development to be filled by industrial uses like manufacturing, services and warehousing and 25% anticipated as fulfillment center logistics in high-cube warehouse rising up to 100 feet tall, according to the commission’s discussion Thursday night.

“Let’s hope our township can really get their teeth into what you’ve said,” Cole told the commission.

The planning commission staff’s entire 11-page review letter to the township can be found beginning on page 17 of Thursday night’s meeting agenda packet, available at lvpc.org.

Among the biggest concerns are infrastructure costs on local, state, interstate roads as well as Delaware River crossings “to ensure that the impacts of the development do not exacerbate existing or incited transportation safety and congestion concerns,” the planning commission wrote, continuing:

“These concerns are significant threats to the public health, safety and general welfare. If not addressed as the land development progresses, these threats will ultimately increase the burden to Township, Commonwealth, State of New Jersey, federal government, County, surrounding municipalities and others in the form of road and bridge upgrades and improvements, safety enhancements and transit needs.”

A critical need is to raise the clearance beneath a Norfolk Southern Corp. rail-line bridge crossing Delaware Avenue in Portland, which becomes River Road in Upper Mount Bethel. At 13-feet-8-inches, the current clearance results in trucks getting caught underneath or scraping the overpass multiple times per year, the commission says.

“All trucks must be directed to travel in this direction from the site, as the main access to both State Route 611 and Interstate 80 in New Jersey,” the commission wrote, adding later: “The LVPC recognizes this overpass as an obstacle that will severely limit the viability of the development. This is a practical matter that must be addressed or the development will not function.”

On the industrial park’s sewer infrastructure, the commission raised fears that privately operated wastewater treatment plants “historically have not been operated as well as public systems, and are often neglected due to the high long-term costs of maintenance, leading to system failure and ultimately, take-over by municipal/regional sewer authorities. Municipalities are ultimately responsible for the proper functioning of all systems within their borders.”

The LVPC “discourages use of packaged sewage treatment plants,” according to its review, and suggests at a minimum that they be owned by the municipality “to ensure proper long-term operation and maintenance.”

“It’s a disaster waiting to happen if indeed the developers put in these package plants and it might not be tomorrow or the next day but it’s going to happen somewhere down the road, likely,” said Steve Repasch, an LVPC member who is executive director of Bethlehem’s water authority and spent decades with the Lehigh County Authority water and wastewater utility, including as manager of operations.

Bradley, the planning commission executive director, noted that as a sketch, the plan reviewed Thursday night is not even the preliminary version that the commission and township officials will see as the project is finalized. It’s been the focus so far of numerous voluntary meetings between the LVPC and local, state and county officials, as well as the developer, she noted.

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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com.

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