EASTON, Pa. - Concerns about an increase in warehouses in the region and the uptick of tractor-trailer traffic to service them have risen in recent years, sparking conversations about air and noise pollution and impacts on the environment.
Those topics were addressed as Green Building United held a sustainable warehouse forum at Lafayette College on Friday.
- Concerns about an increase in warehouses in the region and the uptick of tractor trailers traffic have risen in recent years
- Architects, green experts and government officials met at Lafayette College to discuss ways the area's economy can grow while increasing sustainability
- The goal was to get people thinking differently about design and engineering, including green warehouses, which tap into sustainable energy sources and materials and reduce environmental pollution
The goal of the forum was to discuss ways the Lehigh Valley's economy can grow while increasing sustainability and to get ideas circulating about what having more green warehouses can yield for the area.
The three-hour event in Easton connected industry workers and leaders to discuss and share solutions in hopes of building and producing sustainable projects across the area.
A boom of growth
Becky Bradley, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, explained that cities such as Easton and Bethlehem have seen an increased presence of warehouses because of the state's lower tax rates.
“It really started with Hurricane Sandy and that really devastated the whole port of New York and New Jersey and the industrial facilities around there,” Bradley said.
“They had a lot of fresh and frozen storage that was completely flooded out and they lost billions of dollars collectively. So they were looking for a region nearby.”
Other industries followed and continued to come to the region when they discovered that land values in Northampton and Lehigh counties were less than in New Jersey, and Pennsylvania taxes are lower.
Bradley said the private warehouse sector grew and that there’s still good demand in the industry for more warehouses.
The number of vacancies in the area's warehouses fluctuates from quarter to quarter, but Bradley said during the presentation that while some may appear empty to those passing by, they’re not.
She said industry demand is so high right now that warehouses need to be built long before companies and industries need them.
Sustainable Warehouses
Instead of creating industry-standard buildings, panelists at the forum said they want to advocate for more sustainable buildings.
Bradley said creating green warehouses involves the input of all sectors in building production, including local governments to architects and those involved in infrastructure.
Panelists at the event came from different industries and sectors of warehouse development. They said from an architectural standpoint, it can take a different frame of mind to get more clients on board with understanding green warehouses.
Scott Kelley, partner, architect and sustainability consultant at Re:Vision Architecture, said that many times architects may claim that their clients don’t ask them to build green structures. Yet Kelley said they may not know that sustainable projects are possible.
“I don’t go to a doctor and say, ‘Hey I want surgery on this elbow,’" Kelley said. "I say, ‘Help me figure out what’s wrong.’ The doctor comes up with the right answer. The architect doesn’t.”
He said that the way people think about design and engineering has to come from a different frame of mind and that often people repeat what they know.
Panelists such as Charlie Stocks, head of W.P. Carey's North American Development Team, shared how the company been tackling more sustainable projects. He said the focus is on reducing carbon being emitted into the atmosphere and getting buildings to net zero carbon emissions, or the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere.
Stocks said there are up-front costs to installing something such as a solar panels on a building, but the up-front costs can produce lower electricity costs down the line.
