A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for 11 a.m. Friday at Allentown Commerce Park, 1601 S. 12th St., marking a new phase for a stretch of land once dominated by Mack Trucks. Eden Wood Realty and Penntex Construction are set to break ground on a 154,000-square-foot warehouse planned for an adjacent property within the sprawling former truck-manufacturing site in south Allentown.
The ceremony is set for Friday, Oct. 30, 2026, according to LehighValleyLive.com, which reports the warehouse will be available for lease once complete. Per the company release cited in that report, the building is expected to feature about 36 feet of clear height, 34 loading dock positions with mechanically operated dock levelers, and integrated fire-protection systems.
Eden Wood Realty, a privately held developer based in Bedminster, New Jersey, says it has developed, owned and managed more than 9 million square feet of industrial, office and residential property across New Jersey, Pennsylvania and California over more than 40 years. Penntex Construction, a design-build construction management firm with offices in the Philadelphia, Lehigh Valley and central Pennsylvania areas, will manage the warehouse's construction and related site improvements, the report states.
A Site Tied to Mack's Allentown Legacy
The project sits on land tied closely to Mack Trucks' history in the city. The company moved its headquarters from Brooklyn to Allentown in 1905, according to the seed report's citation of the Mack Trucks Historical Museum, before later relocating its headquarters to Greensboro, North Carolina, and shifting its assembly plant to Lower Macungie Township. Lehigh Valley Public Media reports that the corporation moved its headquarters to South Carolina in 2010 while the assembly plant relocated to Macungie — a detail the outlet attributes to its own reporting, differing slightly from the Greensboro, North Carolina destination cited elsewhere in the seed report.
The 96-acre parcel owned by Allentown Commerce Park sat largely vacant for years after Mack's headquarters departure, according to a 2016 report from mcall.com, which at the time described a proposed three-building industrial complex totaling 1.3 million square feet for the site. Eden Wood Realty's own development page states the company is exploring a range of options to develop the property.
Years of Planning Extensions
Friday's groundbreaking follows a long runway of municipal approvals. The Allentown City Planning Commission first granted conditional approval for plans at the site in October 2016, Lehigh Valley Public Media's reporting shows, and Allentown Commerce Park Corp. later sought and received a two-year extension in November 2021. In September 2023, planning officials granted another two-year extension tied to plans to demolish the former factory along Mack Boulevard and replace it with a warehouse that would total more than 1.1 million square feet.
Most recently, the Allentown City Planning Commission voted on Sept. 16 to grant a 12-month extension for the logistics and warehousing project at 1601 South Twelfth Street, according to citizenportal.ai, with that land-development approval running through Sept. 30, 2026. The outlet reports the developer cited pandemic-era delays, higher interest rates, financing delays and revised plans in seeking the extension. Lehigh Valley Public Media has separately reported that two smaller warehouses — covering 154,000 square feet and 54,000 square feet — were planned for the adjacent property alongside the larger 1.1-million-square-foot project.
Mixed Signals in the Industrial Market
The groundbreaking arrives amid a Lehigh Valley industrial market sending mixed signals. The vacancy rate for industrial buildings, including warehouses, stood at 10.9% in the first quarter of 2026 after hitting 11% the year before, mcall.com reported, while new leasing activity totaled about 2.1 million square feet in that same quarter — outpacing the year-to-date rate from 2025. That report also noted demand for larger warehouses was outpacing available product, with the biggest first-quarter lease going for 726,000 square feet at a Prologis-owned warehouse in Upper Macungie Township.
More recent figures paint a tighter but softer picture. The Lehigh Valley submarket recorded about 735,597 square feet of negative net absorption in the third quarter of 2026, according to a report from cornovuscapital.com, even as vacancy moderated to roughly 7.4%, down from 8.73% in the fourth quarter of 2025. The broader Lehigh Valley and central Pennsylvania I-81/I-78 corridor logged about 156,398 square feet of negative net absorption over the same quarter.
Mark Tuerk is scheduled to speak at Friday's ceremony, per the company release, with attendees expected to include Eden Wood Realty CEO Amy Neu, the firm's senior vice president of development Steve Lidster, Penntex Construction president Jim Hoolehan, and the company's vice president of legal and risk, Chris Hoolehan.
