President and CEO of Penn’s Northeast, John L. Augustine III at the second annual Northeastern Pennsylvania Real Estate Summit in Scranton on Wednesday. – Courtesy Rachel Antosh Hawk
SCRANTON — Every seat was filled at the second annual Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA) Real Estate Summit, held Wednesday at the Hilton Scranton & Conference Center.
More than 225 business and community leaders interested in commercial and industrial real estate joined event host Penn’s Northeast, NEPA’s regional economic development agency, to learn more about the local, regional and international industrial market.
President and CEO of Penn’s Northeast John L. Augustine III noted, “Currently we are experiencing the largest industrial boom that we’ve ever experienced.”
He continued, saying, “We have over 9 million square feet of buildings under construction, we’ve announced more than 5,000 jobs since last year and have over $1 billion worth of capital invested right now in NEPA. So, certainly, from a market standpoint, we are exploding with growth.”
Augustine attributes this growth to location and an increase in manufacturing.
“Being close to major Interstates 80 and 81, we are only a day’s drive from a third of the U.S. population and half of the Canadian population,” he said. “We are also seeing an increase in manufacturing due to our utility infrastructure with affordable natural gas reliability, electric, water and power systems.”
An impressive variety of people attended the Real Estate Summit.
“We have community members, Realtors, developers, builders, Chamber of Commerce members, construction companies, basically anyone that could potentially play a role in the new development that’s here and find out how they need to position themselves to take advantage of this growth,” Augustine said.
“I think that it’s a good time to be doing business in NEPA. All the presentations today showed that our region is growing,” he added.
NEPA Real Estate Summit speaker Brian Knowles, principal of Lee & Associates of Eastern Pennsylvania LLC, said: “NEPA is a great story. When you look at NEPA and consider where investors and developers can invest their money, this is one of the places they are comfortable with investing.”
