Amazon will be end user of Benner Township warehouse first proposed nearly 3 years ago
Nearly three years after plans for a fulfillment center warehouse in Benner Township were first unveiled, the company that will be using it is finally known.
Amazon closed on property in the Benner Commerce Park for $6.3 million on Jan. 28, according to the most recent property transactions released by the Centre County Recorder of Deeds Office. Benner Township secretary Sharon Royer also confirmed that Amazon closed on the 46-acre property, but told the Centre Daily Times that few additional details were available.
When the warehouse’s first plans were submitted in April 2022, it was proposed to be over 1 million square feet on a 102-acre parcel in the Penntech Drive commerce park that would be made by combining three separate lots. However, as plans were withdrawn and resubmitted, the size of the warehouse decreased drastically.
The most recent plans are for a 125,000-square-foot fulfillment center.
Chris Schnure, Centre County’s subdivision and land development planner, said the Centre County planning commission conditionally approved the warehouse’s land development plan last June, given that the project’s developer, SunCap Property Group, met the necessary stormwater and PennDOT requirements asked of them.
SunCap received approval to make the necessary improvements to the site last week, Schnure said. Once the improvements are finished, Schnure and Benner Township’s engineer will perform an on-site inspection to ensure that they have all been done properly.
If the on-site inspection gets the green light from Schnure and the engineer, the planning commission can then approve the warehouse’s final land development plan.
Since the plans were first presented, SunCap has been tight-lipped about what company would end up occupying the warehouse, citing a nondisclosure disagreement with the end user.
That left some county residents and officials frustrated, with County Commissioner Steve Dershem saying at a meeting in 2022 that “we deserve answers as a community.”
Last March, Centre County Commissioner Mark Higgins speculated that the warehouse’s end user would be Amazon, citing Centre County’s economic growth and the decreased size of the warehouse compared to its previously-withdrawn development plans.
Now that it’s officially Amazon, it’s unclear what that could mean to the county in terms of potential job creation.
In the original, larger plans, 700 jobs were estimated to be created by the new warehouse, but Royer told the CDT that the number of job openings, along with a timeline for the warehouse’s construction, had not been shared with the township to this point.
Neither SunCap nor Amazon responded to a request for comment from the CDT.
The Benner Pike corridor where Amazon’s future warehouse will be located has experienced much business growth in recent years.
The corridor has seen the emergence of the Paradise Plaza, a shopping center that is home to a new McDonald’s and Giant Market, with room for at least one more restaurant or retail development plan in the future.
Also in the works in the area is a Wawa gas station, a Tru Hotel by Hilton, an Arby’s and dual-brand hotel.
