New Stanton tables final OK for large warehouse near Pa. Turnpike

Final approval of plans to build a 1 million-square-foot warehouse in New Stanton will have to wait until the developer and borough officials can reach a consensus on a developer’s agreement for the proposed project south of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

Borough council on Tuesday delayed approving site plans, pending attorneys for SunCap Property Group of Charlotte, N.C., and borough solicitor John Campfield reaching an agreement on the conditions for the development of the project.

There has been preliminary discussion on the agreement, but New Stanton officials are waiting for a response from SunCap attorneys. There also are other agreements that will have to be resolved that are part of the developer’s agreement, Campfield said.

“I think it will all work through,” Campfield told council.

SunCap is proposing to build the warehouse on a 145-acre parcel along Westinghouse Drive and Glenn Fox Road. New Stanton Technology Park LP of McMurray owns the property, which sister company RSP purchased in 2005 for SunCap selected. New Stanton Technology Park purchased the property for $5 million in 2002.

When the plans were tabled for approval in August, the engineering firm for the developer, representatives from SunCap and its engineer, H.F. Lenz Companyu of Johnstown, said the warehouse would be served by about 180 tractor-trailers a day. There would be parking spaces for 560 vehicles. Company officials had previously told New Stanton planning commission that the project would create about 600 jobs.

As has been the case throughout the process, SunCap did not reveal which company would use the warehouse once completed.

Matthew Virgin, a SunCap senior vice president for business development in the Pittsburgh office, said he has been asked that many times. A confidentiality agreement prevents him from revealing who would operate it, he said.

An opponent of the project, Torrey Sochacki of Glenn Fox Road, Hempfield, said that an air quality study is needed for an area along Arona and Center roads on the north side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike because of the amount of diesel emissions that would be spewed by the trucks using those roads leading from Westinghouse Drive en route to the turnpike.

Sochacki contended the privacy wall bordering the Pennsylvania Turnpike would funnel the air pollution toward houses along the road.

With the large number of trucks traveling the road “would be putting lives at stake,” Sochacki claimed.