Bottoms Up
Langan Helps Developers Put Distribution Center Destination on the Map
The next time New Jersey gets knocked for not being business-friendly, consider Carneys Point. Located near the bottom of the NJ Turnpike in Salem County, Carneys Point Township was once a blip on the radar, but now it’s home to arguably the largest new industrial development market growing in the Garden State.
Currently, the site consists of five buildings—known as Kelly Logistics Park—totaling 3.8 million square feet of logistics operations, seen as the keystone of the region. In the near future, the immediate area will offer over 14 million square feet across 20 buildings. Its central location on U.S. Route 40 and proximity to multiple major highways provide direct access to over 20 million people within 150 miles, but this also created the need to develop proposed roadway improvements for each building.
Langan has supported the development since its inception in 2019, helping designate the site as an area of redevelopment, creating the zoning to permit warehouses, and leading the entitlement process. The firm’s direct experience, combined with the complex task of analyzing the roadway improvements and impacts of each site, led to an unprecedented solution. Rather than proceeding with the original plan to provide NJDOT with proposed improvements for each site separately, a consortium of developers retained Langan to consolidate the regional traffic study and highway improvement plans into one succinct submission. This move—together with the addition of an external reviewer hired by NJDOT to increase capacity—shaved at least five years off of the approval process.
“What motivates me as a land development engineer is developing creative solutions that meet and exceed the expectations of all parties involved in a particular project, which is what our team is doing at Carneys Point,” said Kevin Webb, Principal, Langan. “We are proud to lend our integrated services and regional expertise to the industrial park and look forward to our continued collaboration with the project team as we work to introduce new jobs and opportunities to the region.”