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High Associates Ltd.’s Greenfield North project has gotten a sizable boost with an $11 million grant in the latest round of funding from Pennsylvania’s Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, the largest earmark for any initiative in the state.
A mixed-use development on the biggest open tract left in East Lampeter Township’s Greenfield complex, Greenfield North will include a pair of 200,000-plus-square-foot Class A industrial buildings as well as more than 600 apartments and townhouses.
“With this critical funding in place, we intend to commence site work as soon as possible,” said Tony Seitz, vice president of development with High Associates.
By going a long way toward funding this site work, the grant will continue the development of Greenfield “as the premier, mixed-use community in central Pennsylvania,” he said, and “will also unleash substantial private investment in building and facilities construction.”
Greenfield North is tied into the ongoing $22 million Walnut Street Extension as well. All told, an estimated 2,676 jobs will be created through both projects.
The state-of-the-art industrial warehouses in Greenfield North will measure 229,000 square feet (450 Ben Franklin Blvd.) and 210,000 square feet (425 Ben Franklin Blvd.) and feature 32-foot ceiling clearance, said Bill Boben, senior vice president of sales and leasing at High Associates.
They will be built with the flexibility to accommodate a wide variety of uses.
On the residential side, there will be 600 apartments in four five-story buildings with elevators (440 in Phase I and 160 in Phase II), along with 28 Phase II townhomes for rent along Willow Road.
East Lampeter Township has been great to work with in this entire process, Seitz said.
He also thanked Gov. Tom Wolf and “our Lancaster County delegation for their bipartisan support and commitment” to the project.
The $11 million grant “is a real honor and reflects how decision makers like what’s happening there,” Seitz added.
According to the RACP application, the money will be used for demolition; erosion and sedimentation controls; all phases of earthwork, including import/export of fill; asphalt paving; site concrete; paver sidewalk; retaining walls; landscaping; riparian buffers; utilities, including water and sanitary extensions serving the development; stormwater management; utility trenching; and electric service.
The Greenfield campus already includes 453 apartments and 280 manufactured homes. About 4,000 people also work there, and more than 2,000 students matriculate there at one of four colleges: Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences, Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, Eastern Mennonite University and Central Penn College’s Lancaster Center.
So Greenfield offers residents the chance to live right where the jobs are, Seitz said.
Nearly 150 events/programs are held in Greenfield each year as well. The total number of expected event attendees in 2022 is roughly 6,500, High Associates estimated. All events or programs must align with the company’s brand pillars, which include health/wellness, social, educational and environmental.
Boben noted that the local companies involved in the development include Greenfield Architects, which is designing the buildings for Greenfield North.
High Steel is also manufacturing the bridge over Millcross Road as part of the Walnut Street Extension, he said.
That project, which began in August and is to completed in November 2023, will add a 1.2-mile, two-lane roadway linking Greenfield to U.S. Route 30, one of Lancaster County’s busiest thoroughfares.
The connectivity theme extends even further.
Greenfield also recently added three more miles of walking trails, for a total of approximately 10 miles throughout the campus. Those will tie into the 1.2-mile-paved Greater Lancaster Heritage Pathway trail for pedestrians and bicyclists that is part of the Walnut Street project.
That trail – and by extension Greenfield – will eventually become part of the countywide trail system.
Paula Wolf is a freelance writer