Easton Area School District board hears community concerns over proposed Wood Avenue warehouse

At a regular meeting of the Eastern Area School District, board members heard an extended presentation and public comment about a proposed 1,000,000-square-foot warehouse near Wood Avenue and agreed that administrators should draft a formal resolution to register the district’s concerns with municipal and state authorities.

The warehouse proposal, presented to the board during the superintendent’s report by Jen Zando Dennis, drew questions about traffic and student safety, the routing of heavy truck traffic through neighborhoods, and potential environmental impacts on the Bushkill Creek watershed and adjacent parks. "They're estimating...200 to 300 trucks that would be moving in and out of that space every day," Zando Dennis said; she added the developer also estimated hundreds of employee vehicles.

The issue matters to the district because several school bus routes and neighborhood streets could be intermixed with warehouse traffic. Ben, the district transportation manager, told the board "there are 27 buses in the afternoon that use that shortcut," and described 70 routes that could be affected if trucks use the Bushkill Drive/13th Street area. He said the intersection at Bushkill Drive and 13th Street already experiences lengthy backups during school dismissal.

District presenters and public commenters said the proposal also raised environmental concerns. The presentation cited a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report noting elevated toxic release and diesel-particulate measures near the site; presenters told the board the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission had given the redevelopment a "relatively negative review" and questioned whether roads and bridges in the vicinity could safely accommodate frequent tractor-trailer traffic.

Public commenters, including residents of Palmer Township and Easton, urged the board to make the district’s concerns part of the public record. Charles Diefenderfer, a Palmer Township resident, urged caution and urged the district to look for ways to reduce costs on unrelated school construction work; Karen Adams, who said she sits on a Palmer Township committee, recommended that any district letter also be shared with the Palmer Township Board of Supervisors.

Board discussion did not include a formal vote on the warehouse proposal. Board members expressed willingness to pursue a district resolution. One board member asked whether the city of Easton could join such a resolution; administrators said they would invite partner municipalities to participate. The administration agreed to draft a resolution that lays out the district’s transportation and safety concerns and to circulate it to board members for review before sending it to municipal officials and relevant state agencies, including PennDOT and state environmental regulators.

The board and speakers also discussed uncertainty about the scale of the proposal: presenters said materials distributed at an early developer meeting described a smaller warehouse footprint than later filings, and that roughly 10% of the site lies within the city of Easton while most is in Wilson Borough. Residents urged review by county and state agencies where appropriate and mentioned litigation as a possible option raised in community briefings.

The item was presented as part of the superintendent’s report; no ordinance, contract award or land-use decision by the district was made at the meeting. Administrators were assigned to prepare a draft resolution for the board to consider at a future meeting and to distribute the draft to local partners for potential joint action.

For now, the district’s action is limited to documenting and amplifying concerns: "I would ask if board members would be willing to entertain some sort of resolution to vote on…to have it part of the public record and distributed to individuals," a board member said during the discussion, and administrators answered they would prepare a draft.