UPPER MACUNGIE TWP., Pa. — A warehouse expansion and a mixed-use housing development soon will be built in the township.
Upper Macungie Board of Supervisors on Wednesday approved a final plan to expand Americold Logistics’ cold storage warehouse at 7150 Ambassador Drive.
The board also approved a preliminary/final plan for Twin Ponds, a mixed-use housing development with 132 residential apartment units and a day care facility at 8739 Hamilton Blvd.
The warehouse expansion approval passed unanimously, but board Vice Chairman Sunny Ghai opposed the Twin Ponds plan.
“We have a pledge; it's only a year old. And it doesn't seem right to me that we don't follow through."Board Vice Chairman Sunny Ghai
Ghai’s primary concern was the waiver of the sidewalk requirement for Hamilton Boulevard. The township typically requires developers to build sidewalks along roads next to new housing developments.
The township’s Vision Zero Action Plan, a recently adopted road safety improvement plan aimed at eliminating traffic fatalities, proposes a sidewalk on Hamilton Boulevard where Twin Ponds will be built.
But granting the waiver means the township can't require the developer to build that sidewalk.
“We have a pledge; it's only a year old," Ghai said. "And it doesn't seem right to me that we don't follow through.”
Board member Jim Brunnell said he thinks a sidewalk does not belong there.
“That is essentially the end of a highway with no traffic calming, no other elements to even warn people that they might have a walking pedestrian,” Brunnell said.
Brunnell also said the state Transportation Department owns the road and likely would not allow sidewalk construction there.
Ghai said he thinks the township should find out if it would be allowed before waiving the requirement.
The plan ultimately passed with the waiver, 2-1, with Ghai voting against it.
Americold warehouse expansion
Americold’s expansion will add a 60-foot-tall, 326,859-square-foot building to its warehouse, which stores frozen food.
The new building will be attached to the existing 45-foot-tall, 268,521-square-foot warehouse. Plans also include a new detached 3,774-square-foot office/welfare building.
The expansion is expected to double the number of truck trips per day to 490, representatives with the applicant said previously.
It was valued at $85 million in Americold’s third quarter report published in November 2023.
The final plan includes a 12-foot-tall wall between the property and the nearby residential development to try to reduce the amount of noise residents hear from the warehouse.
