Dec. 7, 2025
— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
The Route 309 Commerce Center, a 118-acre warehouse property in Upper Saucon Township, has been sold for $150 million.
That’s something to think about the next time some politician or planner says, “The Lehigh Valley warehouse era is coming to an end.”
This latest sale ranks among the biggest in Lehigh Valley history. Anybody talking about the end of the warehouse era is either blowing smoke, engaging in wishful thinking, or counting on the region running out of land so no more warehouses can be built.
That won’t be a victory. That will be the surrender. Warehouses are legal uses. They will keep coming. Some will be rebuilt and made more automated.
Lehigh County records say the buyer was Lehigh E Valley Rd Ind Owner, a limited liability corporation. Its address is listed as an office building in Missouri. Kay Builders, which developed the site and obtained Upper Saucon’s approval for the project, was the seller.
The site is just east of Route 309 and near Route 78. When I last covered the project, the plan was for three “truck terminals” covering more than 1.7 million square feet, or about 40 acres. The plan may have changed since 2024. How much of the development has been done, I don’t know.
Upper Saucon officials worked with the developers, accepting that something was going to be built. The meetings involving the huge project were unusually civil, without shouting and accusations. Residents and the township officials knew development was inevitable.
Here is a link to a 2022 township announcement about the plan.
Some residents were relieved that an earlier plan for housing and retail development was off the board.
The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, an advisory body, noted that the section of Route 309 in the southern portion of Lehigh County just north of Coopersburg is prone to vehicle crashes.
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 