Pregis Signs 7-Year Lease for 304,000SF in Bethel Township, PA

 By Jan Goodwin Muscarella CoStar

A little over a year after completing the project, Dermody Properties has secured a tenant for its speculative warehouse development in Bethel Township, Pennsylvania.

Pregis, a provider of packaging and protective products, signed a lease to take all 304,000 square feet at LogistiCenter at Midway South at 9024 Old Route 22. The expansion will allow the company to add more capacity to its e-commerce product line, Elizabeth Kauchak, chief operating officer at Dermody, said in a release.

“We’ve seen an unprecedented amount of growth in e-commerce over the past year, which has significantly driven up the demand for Class A, state-of-the-art distribution and logistics facilities,” Kauchak said.

The facility is adjacent to Interstate 78, one of Pennsylvania’s main trade arteries. It offers direct access to all major markets along the North Eastern Shore, and from this location Pregis can reach 36% of the United States and 60% of Canada’s population, Gene Preston, East region partner at Dermody Properties, said in a statement.

Over the past 12 months, more than 3.5 million square feet of Berks County industrial space has been occupied, some of the highest levels of demand that the Reading area, which includes Bethel, has ever experienced, according to CoStar information. What remains to be seen is if this hot streak is sustainable, or just a flash in the pan.

Industrial developers have added more than 7 million square feet in Reading since 2015, expanding the local inventory by nearly 20%. Until 2020, demand did not kept pace. Reading’s vacancies were near 15% at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and the region still has several properties that, despite being completed years ago, remained unleased.

“Reading really popped off in 2020. This is definitely Pennsylvania’s most interesting industrial market right now. It did so well last year, but there’s still a lot of supply underway and existing projects that haven’t filled. Their success or troubles will tell us quite a bit about how the supply chain is responding to COVID-19.”

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