Latest news with #CenturyDevelopmentAssociates
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Mayfield to open bids on $15M mine reclamation project for industrial park
A nearly $15 million mine reclamation project is on track to start this summer in Mayfield and Archbald, paving the way for a $110-million-plus warehousing park above the Casey Highway. Mayfield Borough Council will open bids during its meeting Wednesday to select a contractor to carry out a large, grant-funded project that will reclaim 87 acres of mine-scarred land just off Exit 5 of the Casey Highway at the end of Rushbrook Street. Once that land is usable, Reading-based Century Development Associates will construct two warehouses — a 745,200-square-foot warehouse in Mayfield and a 646,380-square-foot warehouse in Archbald — totaling 1.4 million square feet of warehousing space for its planned Century Logistics Center, which is projected to create hundreds of jobs. Mayfield council President Diana Campbell expects to have the borough's engineer and solicitor review the bids in hopes of beginning work in June or July after council awards the contract. Mayfield, which operates on a $1.2 million annual budget, has never had a development as large as the $110-million plus warehousing project, she said. 'The process is a lot more involved than we ever could have imagined,' Campbell said. 'It's been a learning process for all of us, and we're coming out strong.' In Archbald, borough officials anticipate extending the conditional approval the town granted for its portion of the project a year and a half ago. Borough Manager Dan Markey said council granted conditional use approval for the logistics park in December 2023, which expires after 18 months, requiring Century Development Associates to seek an extension if they do not have all of their permitting in place by June, Markey said. The project still needs permitting at the local and state level, including land development, zoning, stormwater and highway occupancy permitting, he said. To fund the mine reclamation, the state Department of Environmental Protection awarded Mayfield $14.97 million through its Abandoned Mine Lands and Acid Mine Drainage Grant Program. According to a public notice published May 2 in The Times-Tribune that advertised the available contract, work will entail installation of temporary erosion and sedimentation controls; drilling/blasting and earthmoving of 815,000 cubic yards of material; drilling/blasting and over-excavation, including structural backfill of 820,000 cubic yards for deep mine remediation; and final grading and site stabilization. According to a DEP grant summary for the project, there were two coal seams that were historically deep mined on the site: the Top Clark and Clark beds, with a 16-acre area covering a portion of the Clark mine that is considered a potential subsidence zone. In addition to reclaiming the mines, other work includes removing spoil piles (mine waste), backfilling pits and excavating high walls, according to the DEP. The contractor will have 365 days to complete work, said Ron Ryczak, Mayfield's grant administrator and a former borough councilman. Ryczak, who spent 32 years working at the DEP's Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation, said the most significant portion of the project will be 'daylighting' the uppermost coal vein. Core drilling found that the first underlying coal vein had been mined so much that it would not be conducive to building on top of, requiring crews to 'daylight' it, or blast all the way down to the original floor — about 50 feet down — and remove all of the material. 'All the material that gets blasted gets moved all the way down to what's considered the floor of that vein, and then at that point, they start bringing the material back up as engineered fill,' he said. The engineered fill would be compacted and used as an underlying sub-base for the future warehouses. Other remnants of coal mines include pits from strip mining and spoil piles, he said. The borough hired Kaufman Engineering, Ryczak said, explaining the firm did the work necessary to calculate the figures included in the contract. As work is underway, Kaufman will track the material being moved and the blasting using a drone, he said. Mark Powell, the owner of Century Development Associates, said his project wouldn't have been possible without the nearly $15 million in grant funding. He estimates the total project will cost between $110 million and $120 million. He anticipates starting construction on the first of his two warehouses next spring. Which warehouse he builds first depends on who will occupy the buildings, though Powell said he believes the Archbald one will probably be first because the mine reclamation work on the Archbald side will be done sooner. 'We're going to go all at it,' he said. 'We're going to put the foot on the pedal and go.' The warehouses will take 10 to 15 months to build, depending on who the user will be, Powell said. He projects it will create 500 to 700 jobs across the two buildings, though it depends on who occupies them. Powell estimated the jobs will pay $20 to $24 an hour with benefits. Both Campbell and Markey noted the impact the logistics park will have on their communities. The location is ideal because it's above the Casey Highway, so it won't bring truck traffic into residential areas, Markey said. The new jobs will support businesses in not just Archbald and Mayfield but other nearby towns like Jermyn, he said. 'The benefits are really widespread,' Markey said. 'They're not just going to benefit Archbald. They're not just going to benefit Mayfield. They're going to benefit the entire area.' Although the site has a 10-year Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance designation, or LERTA, that reduces how much it will pay on property taxes for the first decade, Campbell pointed to the annually increasing tax revenue from the development, with the landowner paying more each year under the LERTA. LERTAs are often applied to large warehousing projects like this, with officials touting them as key for being competitive and attracting developers. 'It's helping the developer, but it's … going to allow us to see a little more every single year than we ever had before,' Campbell said. Roads will be the borough's top priority with the new tax revenue, in addition to parks and recreation with playground improvements and additional support for the borough's police, fire and emergency medical services, she said. 'It's going to help release the burden off of our residents a little bit,' Campbell said. 'We want to make our community as great of a place to live as possible.'
Yahoo
26-01-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Warehousing project on mine-scarred land in Mayfield, Archbald on track to begin this year
A $110-million-plus project to build nearly 1.4 million square feet of warehouses on former mine land above the Casey Highway in Mayfield and Archbald is closer to materializing. Century Development Associates owner Mark Powell expects to begin work on his proposed Century Logistics Center during the second quarter of 2025, reclaiming about 87 acres of mine-scarred land and making way for two warehouses across the 230.4-acre site just off Exit 5 on the Casey Highway at the end of Rushbrook Street. To pay for the mine reclamation, the state Department of Environmental Protection announced in September 2023 that it would award Mayfield $14.97 million through its Abandoned Mine Lands and Acid Mine Drainage Grant Program to remediate the site ahead of the development. Mayfield applied for the funding on behalf of the Reading-based Century Development Associates. Mayfield is now working to finish the paperwork on the grant, which comes from the federal government administered through the state, said grant administrator and former Councilman Ron Ryczak. 'It's a paperwork process at this point that we're trying to get squared away,' Ryczak said. 'The developer is keen on getting this done ASAP … so we want to make sure we have everything lined up.' The funding itself is already locked in, with the borough receiving final grant approval, Mayor Al Chelik said. The process of filling in the defunct mines is to essentially blast away the rock down to the level of the coal vein, putting the now-fragmented material back and compacting it, said Ryczak, who previously worked for the DEP's Bureau of Abandoned Mines for more than three decades. According to a DEP grant summary for the project, there were two coal seams that were historically deep mined on the site: the Top Clark and Clark beds, with a 16-acre area covering a portion of the Clark mine that is considered a potential subsidence zone. In addition to reclaiming the mines, other work includes removing spoil piles, backfilling pits and excavating high walls, according to the DEP. Powell said he is now waiting for his National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, or NPDES permit, from the Lackawanna County Conservation District, which he hopes to receive during the second quarter of the year. 'The minute that permit hits my hand, we're going to be breaking ground,' Powell said. Powell plans to build two warehouses — one in Archbald and one in Mayfield. If the reclamation work starts on time, Powell wants to begin construction of a 646,380-square-foot warehouse on the Archbald portion of the property in the fall, followed by construction of a 745,200-square-foot warehouse in Mayfield during the first or second quarters of 2026. He estimates the entire project will cost between $110 million and $120 million, creating 500 to 700 jobs across the two buildings, with pay ranging from $20 to $40 an hour and most jobs being in the $20 to $30 range. Powell could not comment on potential tenants in the warehouses, though he said, 'I don't think there's been a month go by where we haven't had inquiries about our two buildings. There's a lot of interest.' He sees his logistics center as part of a growing warehousing trend in Northeast Pennsylvania. In less than a decade, developers and warehousing giants have increasingly turned to Lackawanna County to develop new warehouses, including Amazon opening warehouses in Jessup and Olyphant, as well as online pet retailer Chewy opening another in Archbald. Powell pointed to the region's workforce and its proximity to multiple major highways. Because it is located along the Casey Highway, his logistics park will keep the wear-and-tear of the traffic out of the towns and on the highway system, he said. 'In the next 10 years, (Lackawanna) County is going to look very, very different,' Powell said, adding that he's had home builders contact him interested in building 400 to 500-home communities. 'You can go anywhere you want in the country on those highways. It gets you there faster.' Citing U.S. Department of Commerce reports, Powell estimated the warehouses will contribute $200 million per year of goods and services and noted the tax revenue they will provide to their host municipalities. The warehouses will have a large economic impact on the borough, which has an annual budget of just over $1 million, Chelik said. Although a 10-year Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance term will reduce how much the property owner initially pays on improvements to the land, Chelik pointed to other taxes including local services and earned income taxes. 'These warehouses are going to be a boon to Mayfield,' he said. 'No question.'
