Weis Markets has paid $12.5 million for the sprawling former Offset Paperback manufacturing facility in Dallas Township, more than doubling what the previous owner paid for the site just last year. The deal closed quietly in late October, and so far, nobody outside the company is saying what the Sunbury-based grocer intends to build there.
According to a deed filed in Luzerne County and reported by The Citizens’ Voice, Fernbrook Commons 1 LLC sold the property to Weis Markets Inc. last month. Dallas Township Administrator Joe Moskovitz confirmed the township has heard about the transaction but has not seen any formal proposal. “We’ve been notified of the sale. There were rumors of course. No plans have been submitted,” he said.
That leaves the future of the 16-acre property wide open, at least publicly. Fernbrook Commons 1 LLC, managed by Sordoni Properties LLC, bought the site for $5.5 million in 2025 and at the time floated the idea of a commercial hub anchored by a supermarket, along with a convenience store with gas pumps and a drive-through restaurant. Sordoni also said it was weighing a fitness center, a medical facility and other retail tenants, but those were proposals tied to the previous owner, not confirmed plans from Weis.
A Grocer Already Rooted in the Back Mountain
Weis isn’t a stranger to this corner of Luzerne County. The company, which operates roughly 200 stores across seven states, already runs a location at 2525 Memorial Highway in Dallas Borough. It also closed its Country Club Shopping Center store in Dallas Township in January 2025, a closure the company attributed at the time to continuing underperformance, with plans to shift that store’s 43 associates to other nearby locations including the Memorial Highway store.
Weis has a longer history of shuffling its footprint in the Back Mountain. Back in 2019, the chain bought Thomas’ Foodtown in Dallas Township and Thomas’ Food Basics in Shavertown. Weis later closed the Shavertown location and now rents that space to Gerrity’s Ace Hardware, which operates there today. The former Country Club store, meanwhile, remains available for lease.
From Amusement Park to Book-Printing Giant
The newly sold property carries a history that stretches back nearly eight decades. Sordoni Construction built the facility in 1948 for the Fernbrook Park Mill, a division of Bloomsburg Mills, on land that had previously hosted the Fernwood Amusement Park near a train station. About a decade later, Linear Inc. took over operations at the site before Offset Paperback Manufacturers acquired the property in the early 1970s.
Offset Paperback, founded in 1972, grew into what was once considered the world’s largest paperback book manufacturing plant, running around the clock with nearly 1,000 unionized workers. German multimedia company Bertelsmann acquired the business in 1980, when it was churning out more than 250 million books a year. The plant’s fortunes eventually turned: in December 2023, the company announced it would close within a few months, citing a rapid decline in demand for printed books.
Weis Expansion Plans Have Lagged Before
The Dallas Township purchase comes as Weis has been trying to accelerate its broader growth after a slow stretch. The chain had planned to begin construction on six new stores set to open in 2025, along with five new fuel centers, 11 major store remodels and 15 minor remodels, according to Grocery Dive. The company has said significant labor and supply chain disruptions over the prior two years had pushed several development projects back.
Whether the Dallas Township site fits into that renewed push remains unclear. For now, residents and township officials alike are left watching for paperwork that, as of this week, simply hasn’t arrived.
