A $170 million cold storage facility will one day replace a steel mill scrap yard in Claymont with the help of more than $4.5 million from Delaware taxpayers.
Agile Cold Storage, a three-year-old Gainesville, Georgia company, plans to build a climate-controlled warehouse south of Naamans Road and west of the I-95 and I-495 interchange. The company will employ 130 people at the facility at an average annual salary of $56,000.
It is one of two industrial projects planned at First State Crossing, a large-scale mixed-use redevelopment of the Claymont steel mill property. The state Council on Development Finance on Monday approved a $4,560,500 grant for the project. The money comes from Delaware’s Strategic Fund, a pool of state money directed toward business retention and attraction.
Who is Agile Cold Storage?
Agile Cold Storage stores and distributes products for other companies, acting as a third-party cog in the supply chain. The Claymont facility will be its first in the region — the company has two warehouses in Georgia with a third on the way.
Each warehouse serves between three and five customers, John Ripple, senior vice president for automation, told the Council on Development Finance Monday. More than half of the Claymont facility will be dedicated to imported protein, Ripple said, which is stored for several months. Agile will bring an existing customer to Claymont and has a second lined up that will be moving its business from New Jersey’s Port of Newark.
Ripple said the Claymont site was attractive because it is about halfway between the Port of Wilmington and the Packer Avenue Terminal in Philadelphia. Ripple said products imported to the Philadelphia port are being transported across the river to New Jersey and later driven back over to end users. Agile feels it can fit a need serving those companies and others at the Port of Wilmington, which has limited cold storage capacity.
There is a mix of uses around the property, including the Knollwood community just to the south. A truck entrance will be constructed at Ridge Road and an employee entrance will be across from the Tri-State Mall property. The loading stalls will be on the opposite side of the building from Naamans Road.
The state grant
Agile’s grant is the largest approved by the Council on Development Finance this year. It represents about a quarter of the Strategic Fund, which is the state’s primary economic development resource.
Grant applicants are brought to the council by the Delaware Prosperity Partnership, a privately run organization set up by Gov. John Carney to oversee the state’s economic development. Megan Kopistecki, DPP’s senior manager for business development, emphasized the intense demand for cold storage facilities when presenting the project to the council Monday.
“More than 70% of all storage facilities in the U.S. were built before 2000, with the average facility more than 40 years old,” she said. “Older facilities lack the taller ceilings and the wider column spacing that allow for increased inventory and more efficient operations.”
Cold storage warehouses are more expensive to build than regular warehouses. Ripple also noted that Agile faces higher than usual site work costs given the property’s previous use as a storage area and scrap yard for the steel mill.
The 130 jobs are due to be created in the three years after receiving funding. Typically, grant recipients face claw backs if they don’t produce the jobs in the agreed upon timeframe.
Agile plans to build the facility in two phases beginning in September or October. The company still needs New Castle County approval before it can proceed. Construction will continue over roughly the next five years, Kopistecki said.
“Agile is looking forward to hiring our team members and servicing our customers starting next summer,” Agile Cold Storage President and CEO Don Schoenl said in a statement.
What is in First State Crossing?
The former scrap yard was previously slated for office space, but First State Crossing developer Commercial Development Company of St. Louis, Missouri pursued industrial uses in the post-COVID office downturn.
Now, something of an industrial hub is forming around Naamans Road.
A 358,000-square-foot warehouse along Philadelphia Pike south of Naamans Road was the first part of First State Crossing to start construction. It is a regular speculative warehouse being built by First Industrial Realty, a Chicago-based real estate company.
It is expected to cost about $60 million and be completed in the first quarter of 2024, according to a June press release.
A separate proposal at the Tri-State Mall across Naamans Road from the Agile Cold Storage site has approval to build a 525,000-square-foot warehouse. Developer New York-based KPR Centers has not announced a tenant. Demolition of the Tri-State Mall occurred earlier this year, and a small retail space included in the project is under construction.
Future plans for First State Crossing include housing, retail and some office space. Local officials are also pursuing a riverfront park.
A new Claymont train station is expected to open in November before Thanksgiving, according to Delaware Transit Corp. CEO John Sisson.
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Contact Brandon Holveck at bholveck@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter @holveck_brandon.
