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[orbemnews]

A New Crop in Pennsylvania: Warehouses OREFIELD, Pa. — From his office in an old barn on a turkey farm, David Jaindl watches a towering flat-screen TV with video feeds from the hatchery to the processing room, where the birds are butchered. Mr. Jaindl is a third-generation farmer in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley. His turkeys are sold at Whole Foods and served at the White House on Thanksgiving. But there is more to Mr. Jaindl’s business than turkeys. For decades, he has been involved in developing land into offices, medical facilities and subdivisions, as the area in and around the Lehigh Valley has evolved from its agricultural and manufacturing roots to also become a health care and higher education hub. Now Mr. Jaindl is taking part in a new shift. Huge warehouses are sprouting up like mushrooms along local highways, on country roads and in farm fields. The boom is being driven, in large part, by the astonishing growth of Amazon and other e-commerce retailers and the area’s proximity to New York City, the nation’s largest concentration of online shoppers, roughly 80 miles away. “They are certainly good for our area,” said Mr. Jaindl, who is developing land for several new warehouses. “They add a nice tax base and good employment.” But the warehouses are being built at such a dizzying pace that many residents worry the area’s landscape, quality of life and long-term economic well-being are at risk. E-commerce is fueling job growth, but the work is physically taxing, does not pay as well as manufacturing and could eventually be phased out by automation. Yet the warehouses are leaving a permanent mark. There are proposals to widen local roads to accommodate the thousands of additional trucks ferrying goods from the hulking structures. In the township of Maxatawny, Pa., just west of the Lehigh Valley, a giant warehouse is slated to be built at the site of a 259-year-old cemetery that holds the remains of a Revolutionary War captain and what is believed to be the unmarked grave of a woman he had enslaved. Not far away, near a group of Mennonite farms, a tractor-trailer hit a horse-drawn buggy in late March, flipping it and sending one passenger to the hospital and the horse on the loose. Closer to Allentown, the area’s largest city, FedEx has built a new “ground hub,” one of its largest such facilities in the United States. A billboard down the road advertises legal representation for people injured in truck accidents. “They are coming here and putting up shiny new warehouses and erasing pieces of history,” said Juli Winkler, whose ancestors are buried in the Maxatawny cemetery. “Who knows if these big buildings will even be useful in 50 years.” Developers are very confident in the industry’s growth, however, particularly after the pandemic. Big warehouse companies like Prologis and Duke Realty are investing billions in local properties. Many of the warehouses are being built before tenants have signed up, making some wonder whether there is a bubble and if some of these giant buildings will ever be filled. “People are calling it warehouse fatigue,” said Dr. Christopher R. Amato, a member of the regional planning commission. “It feels like we are just being inundated.” There are now almost as many warehouse and transportation jobs in the region as manufacturing positions. But that’s not a milestone all celebrate — not in an area that hopes to keep alive its higher-paying manufacturing sector, even though some of its biggest employers like Bethlehem Steel closed long ago. Manufacturing jobs in the Lehigh Valley pay, on average, $71,400 a year, compared with $46,700 working in a warehouse or driving a truck. The region is still home to large manufacturing plants that produce Crayola crayons and marshmallow Peeps candies. Don Cunningham, the chief executive of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, says the warehouse jobs are lifting employment and wages, particularly for unskilled workers. “If you were to turn away this economic opportunity for a whole sector of workers, where do they go?” Mr. Cunningham said. “They could end up on some sort of government assistance or end up caught up in the criminal justice system.” Mr. Cunningham, whose father worked in the local steel industry, said he recognized that distribution jobs were not ideal. “But to be able to make $16 an hour with a high school diploma, there aren’t a lot of places in the U.S. where you can do that,” he said. “This is a really nice sector for low-skilled workers. It at least gives them a fighting chance to carve out a livable wage.” A depot on the global supply chain To Kirk R. Johnson, the Lehigh Valley is a dreamscape. There is available land, but not too much, which helps keep values high. Two major interstates pass through the area ferrying goods through the Northeast. About 30 percent of American consumers are within a day’s truck drive. Looking for an opportunity to invest, Mr. Johnson, the chief investment officer of the Watson Land Company, a giant owner of warehouses in Southern California, teamed up with Mr. Jaindl. Together, they are developing three new warehouse projects around the Lehigh Valley, totaling more than three million square feet, or about 60 football fields. They are being built speculatively, meaning no tenants are lined up. “There are tons of risk in development,” Mr. Johnson said, “And building speculatively is one of them.” Mr. Jaindl said many concerns in the area about warehouses were unwarranted. He said that the Lehigh Valley still had a large manufacturing base and that his land company was also seeing demand for houses and hotels, reflecting the economy’s strength beyond warehouses. As an active farmer whose grandfather started the business with just a handful of turkeys, Mr. Jaindl took his stewardship of the land seriously, he said. His family is regarded as one of the most generous philanthropists in the area. “Farming is our foundation,” he said. He said the warehouse critics didn’t often acknowledge how vital the industry had become during the pandemic. Many of the warehouses are being used to distribute food across the Northeast. “The truck drivers played a very important role getting necessities and food to people during Covid,” he said. Today in Business Updated  May 25, 2021, 5:16 p.m. ET With much of the land nearest to the interstates already built out, developers are pushing farther into the countryside. One of Mr. Jaindl’s warehouse projects is slated for a farm field just over the state line in White Township, N.J. Mr. Jaindl said he had decided to build on only half of the 600-acre site and to preserve the rest as farmland even though he was entitled to develop the entire parcel. The complex could add hundreds of truck trips a day to rural roads that wind through picturesque towns near the Delaware River. The nearest highway is about 12 miles from the proposed warehouse. Tom Bodolsky moved to nearby Hope Township more than 40 years ago because it was a place where “he could see the stars at night.” Back then, manufacturing plants were not far away, but no one foresaw that the area could become a depot on the global supply chain. “These towns got caught with their pants down,” he said. ‘I was completely beat up’ In a promotional video posted on the economic development agency’s website, there are images of welders, builders and aerial footage of the former Bethlehem Steel plant, which closed in the 1990s. The narrator touts the Lehigh Valley’s ethos as the home of “makers” and “dreamers.” “We know the value of an honest day’s work,” the narrator intones. “We practically wrote the book on it.” Jason Arias found an honest day’s work in the Lehigh Valley’s warehouses, but he also found the physical strain too difficult to bear. Mr. Arias moved to the area from Puerto Rico 20 years ago to take a job in a manufacturing plant. After being laid off in 2010, Mr. Arias found a job packing and scanning boxes at an Amazon warehouse. The job soon started to take a toll — the constant lifting of boxes, the bending and walking. “Manufacturing is easy,” he said. “Everything was brought to you on pallets pushed by machines. The heaviest thing you lift is a box of screws.” One day, walking down stairs in the warehouse, Mr. Arias, 44, missed a step and felt something pop in his hip as he landed awkwardly. It was torn cartilage. At the time, Mr. Arias was making $13 an hour. (Today, Amazon pays an hourly minimum of $15.) In 2012, Mr. Arias left Amazon and went to a warehouse operated by a food distributor. After a few years, he injured his shoulder on the job and needed surgery. “Every time I went home I was completely beat up,” said Mr. Arias, who now drives a truck for UPS, a unionized job which he likes. Dr. Amato, the regional planning official, is a chiropractor whose patients include distribution workers. Manufacturing work is difficult, but the repetitive nature of working in a warehouse is unsustainable, he said. “If you take a coat hanger and bend it back and forth 50 times, it will break,” he said. “If you are lifting 25-pound boxes multiple times per hour, eventually things start to break down.” Dennis Hower, the president of the local Teamsters union, which represents drivers for UPS and other companies in the Lehigh Valley, said he was happy that the e-commerce boom was resulting in new jobs. At the same time, he’s reminded by the empty storefronts everywhere that other jobs are being destroyed. “Every day you open up the newspaper and see another retail store going out of business,” he said. Not everyone can handle the physicality of warehouse work or has the temperament to drive a truck for 10 hours a day. In fact, many distribution companies are having a hard time finding enough local workers to fill their openings and have had to bus employees in from out of state, Mr. Hower said. “You can always find someone somewhere who is willing to work for whatever you are going to pay them,” he said. A slave’s final resting place Two years ago, there were no warehouses near Lara Thomas’s home in Shoemakersville, Pa., a town of 1,400 people west of the Lehigh Valley. Today, five of them are within walking distance. “It hurts my heart,” said Ms. Thomas. “This is a small community.” A local history buff, Ms. Thomas is a member of a group of volunteers who regularly clean up old, dilapidated cemeteries in the area, including one in Maxatawny that is about two miles from her church. The cemetery, under a grove of trees next to a wide-open field, is the final resting place of George L. Kemp, a farmer and a captain in the Revolutionary War. Last summer, the warehouse developer Duke Realty, which is based in Indianapolis, argued in county court that it could find no living relatives of Mr. Kemp and proposed moving the graves to another location. A “logistics park” is planned on the property. Meredith Goldey, who is a Kemp descendant, was not impressed with Duke’s due diligence. “They didn’t look very hard.” Ms. Goldey, other descendants and Ms. Thomas pored through old property and probate records and found Mr. Kemp’s will. The documents stipulated that a woman enslaved by Mr. Kemp, identified only as Hannah, would receive a proper burial. While there is no visible marker for Hannah in the cemetery, the captain’s will strongly suggests she is buried alongside the rest of the family. “This is not the Deep South,” Ms. Thomas said. “It is almost unheard-of for a family to own a slave in eastern Pennsylvania in the early 19th century and then to have her buried with them.” Several descendants of Mr. Kemp filed a lawsuit against Duke Realty seeking to protect the cemetery. A judge has ordered the two sides to come up with a solution by next month. A spokesman for Duke Realty said in an email that the company “is optimistic that the parties will reach an amicable settlement in the near future.” Ms. Thomas worries that if the bodies are exhumed and interred in another location, they will not be able to locate Hannah’s remains and they will be buried under the warehouse. “She will be lost,” she said. Source link Orbem News #Crop #Pennsylvania #warehouses

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[junker-town]

If Terry Bowden finishes 2017, Akron will be his longest-running gig ever

The coach who once went 11-0 at Auburn has a weirdly sustainable wild-card thing going at Akron.

Terry Bowden is now responsible for 50 percent of Akron's bowl appearances and 100 percent of its bowl wins. The Zips had fallen into a deep pit when he arrived; after winning 20 games from 2003-05, they won 12 from 2007-09 and three from 2010-12. Getting to eight wins and a top-80 spot in S&P+ is a magnificent accomplishment. The only thing harder than creating success is maintaining it.

— The 2016 Akron preview

In the 30 years since Akron moved back up to FBS, the Zips have only won more than five games in a season on eight occasions.

Through that prism, Akron's five-win 2016, a campaign defined by a sturdy start and an injury-plagued collapse, wasn't that bad. The Zips showed upside as high as what they had boasted in going 8-5 in 2015 — higher, even. They exploded past Marshall in Huntington early, beat eventual bowl team Miami (Ohio) by 22, and narrowly fell to a rock-solid Appalachian State.

That Akron collapsed under the weight of injuries is understandable; it happens to programs of this caliber. You don’t have the depth of play-makers to withstand a barrage.

The Zips finished with a wide receiver at quarterback, and just two defensive linemen managed to play in all 12 games. The defense cratered, then began to rebound just as the offense fell apart.

The downside was still a little jarring. The same team that nearly beat Appalachian State lost to an awful Buffalo by 21. The team that won at Marshall by 27 (and before Marshall suffered its own collapse, no less) lost by 10 at home to Bowling Green.

It felt like Bowden was being forced to start all over again ... again.

In a way, though, Bowden starts over every year. He coaches like a man who’s been fired before, bringing in transfers and doing whatever he can to replenish Akron’s roster on a year-to-year basis. And strangely enough, this has resulted in a rather stable gig: he will begin his sixth year this fall.

Make it to 2018, and this will be the longest tenure of Bowden’s career — longer than the Samford gig that finished strong (21-5 in 1991-92) and earned him the Auburn job, and longer than the Auburn gig, which began 22-1-1 and ended with both turmoil and a 1-5 start to 1998.

Bowden went to a broadcaster’s chair for about a decade, then to North Alabama for three years, where he parlayed a mix of transfers and local talent to a 29-9 record and three Division II playoff appearances. And then he made the 650-mile trek northeast to Akron.

Considering his career’s ups and downs, Bowden’s Akron tenure had been strangely linear: a 1-11 start, followed by two 5-7 near-misses and the eight-win breakthrough. With a healthy two-deep and a collapsing Bowling Green, it seemed 2016 might be the year for the Zips to challenge for the division title.

In theory, it could still happen. Akron has some rebuilding to do at wide receiver, but for the most part, injuries created depth of experience throughout the roster, and combined with the latest batch of transfers — a running back from Oregon State, linebackers from Pitt and Miami, defensive backs from Rutgers and West Virginia, and a JUCO quarterback for insurance — this lineup doesn’t need too many breaks to turn into something interesting. If it can stay on the field, anyway.

2016 in review

2016 Akron statistical profile.

The difference between Semi-Healthy Akron and Banged-Up Akron was stark.

First 6 games (4-2) — Avg. percentile performance: 41% (~top 75) | Avg. yards per play: Zips 6.8, Opp 5.8

Last 6 games (1-5) — Avg. percentile performance: 21% (~top 100) | Avg. yards per play: Opp 6.3, Zips 5.3

The defense’s cracks began to show a little earlier, allowing 7.3 yards per play to Appalachian State and 27 points to a mostly awful Kent State offense.

Still, it continued to struggle until the last two games, when it allowed just 4.8 combined yards per play to BGSU and Ohio. Unfortunately, at that point, Akron’s offense was without a quarterback. The sixth win, which seemed all but certain midseason, never came. Akron lost its last four, to both good teams (48-17 to Toledo, 9-3 to Ohio) and bad (41-20 to Buffalo, 38-28 to BGSU).

Offense

Full advanced stats glossary.

Perhaps the most frustrating part of Akron’s offensive collapse is that the Zips had survived one quarterback injury.

Woodson was playing the best football of his career. Against Marshall and Appalachian State, he completed a combined 52 of 75 passes (69 percent) for 732 yards, and while he took six sacks in those games, seven touchdowns can overcome that.

Woodson missed the next two games with a shoulder injury, but Pitt transfer Tre’Von Chapman stepped in pretty well. He was far less efficient with his arm, completing just 26 of 57 passes against Kent State and Miami, but he averaged nearly 16 yards per completion and offset that inefficiency by rushing 17 times for 125 yards.

Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images

Thomas Woodson

At this point, Akron had won a school record six consecutive MAC games. After a dreadful Chapman performance against WMU in a blowout loss, Woodson returned to lead the Zips to a win over Ball State. And then the bottom fell out. Woodson was awful against Buffalo, and Akron couldn’t keep up with Toledo’s firepower. And against Bowling Green, both Woodson and Chapman were lost for the season. Senior receiver Tyrell Goodman took over, and Akron managed only three points in the season-ending loss to Ohio.

With some recovery time, here’s what we know about Akron’s offense:

Bowden moved Chapman to receiver and signed JUCO transfer (and former Virginia QB) Nick Johns to compete with Woodson. One assumes three-star redshirt freshman Kato Nelson might be ready to play a role, too. If Woodson is healthy, he can be tremendous.

Chapman could become one of Akron’s go-to receivers, because the top two guys — JoJo Natson, Jr. and Jerome Lane, who combined for 54 percent of last year’s targets — are gone. The top three returning receivers (Austin Wolf, A.J. Coney, Kwadarrius Smith) combined for just a 47 percent catch rate.

Efficiency will be a desperate need in the receiving corps. Can tight ends play a larger role? Mykel Traylor-Bennett and Newman Williams had a 69 percent catch rate in 2016 ... but saw only 1.3 targets per game. Tight end and slot receiver are frequently the possession positions, but Akron boasts no proven entities.

Akron’s ground game was at its most efficient when Chapman was at quarterback (which rendered the passing game inefficient). Senior Manny Morgan is a steady back, and junior Van Edwards Jr. is more all-or-nothing, but more might be needed out of the run game if the receiving corps is struggling. Oregon State transfer Deltron Sands could play a role.

The line is the least of Akron’s worries. It was a bit leaky but strong in short yardage, and it returns four of last year’s five starters (plus two guys with spot-starting experience).

Coordinator A.J. Milwee has free rein to employ his version of a MAC spread offense, and it showed massive potential. There are big-play threats in guys like Edwards, Wolf, and Smith, and when Woodson is in rhythm, the ceiling is high.

Jason Mowry-USA TODAY Sports

Austin Wolf

Defense

Chuck Amato is still chugging along. The 70-year-old former Bobby Bowden assistant and NC State head coach showed up in Akron the same time that Terry Bowden did, and his defense has done heavy lifting.

The Zips improved to 74th in Def. S&P+ in 2013 and 73rd in 2014 before surging to 37th during Akron’s 2015 bowl season. But his 2016 unit never really had a chance. The Zips had to replace their top three linebackers and about half of their two-deep on the line and in the secondary, and then injuries obliterated any hopes from there.

End Jamal Marcus had 12.5 tackles for loss in 2015 but missed five games.

Tackle Brock Boxen hinted at a breakthrough with 4.5 tackles for loss in six games but missed most of the second half of the season.

Tackles Davon’te Jest and Jelani Hamilton missed three games each, and Ibrahima Camara missed two. Akron had no stability at tackle and predictably fell from 21st to 107th in Rushing S&P+.

The secondary missed rover Jordan George for most of the first half of the season and lost starter Zach Guiser when George returned. Nine DBs recorded at least 17.5 tackles, but only four played in all 12 games. And guess what: the Zips fell from 40th to 102nd in Passing S&P+. Shocking, right?

Photo by Dylan Buell/Getty Images

Ulysees Gilbert III

From a list-the-assets perspective, Akron might have enough to rebound nicely. Guiser and George are both back, as is sophomore Alvin Davis, who led the secondary in tackles from the rover position. Junior linebacker Ulysees Gilbert III had a breakthrough season (11.5 tackles for loss, four sacks, three breakups), and if Camara, Boxen, and Jest are all healthy at the same time, they could join Darius Copeland to form one of the MAC’s better tackle units.

Unfortunately, Akron is destitute when it comes to talent on the edges. The top three ends are gone, leaving only senior Deon’Tae Moore (three TFLs) behind. The top three corners are also gone; sophomore Kyron Brown (three INTs, one breakup) is now the de facto leader.

Enter the transfers. Corners Darian Dailey (Rutgers) and Mark Ellis (WVU) could become early key contributors if they’re ready to, and linebackers Jamal Davis II (Pitt) and James King (Miami) could plump up an interesting but otherwise thin linebacking corps.

You hate to have to rely on transfers the moment they become eligible, but if Dailey and Ellis aren’t ready to play at a high level at cornerback, I don’t know who will. Davis, maybe?

There are no transfer answers at end, at least not yet. Unless freshmen get involved or a lighter tackle like Copeland or Boxen moves outside, I’m not sure how the Zips fill a two-deep.

Amato loves to attack. Akron’s 2015 havoc rate of 18.7 percent ranked 23rd in the country, and the Zips went after both ball and ball-carrier at every level of the defense. In 2016, they fell to 105th in havoc (13.2 percent), and the effects were clear.

In theory, you can structure a good starting lineup here: Moore, Boxen, Camara and Copeland on the line, Gilbert, senior Andrew Hauser and J. Davis/King at linebacker, and A. Davis, Guiser, George, and Brown/Dailey/Ellis in the secondary. Unfortunately, that encompasses basically all of Akron’s known entities (and a few unknowns). Depth is a little bit scary.

Nick Cammett-USA TODAY Sports

Kyron Brown (20) and Jordan George (24)

Special Teams

Good: Akron seems to have a steady place-kicker in Tom O’Leary, who made all eight of his sub-40 field goals and two of his three longer ones. He also missed three PATs, which is a bit strange. We’ll say the jury’s out on the junior, but he has promise.

Good: Van Edwards Jr. was one of the nation’s steadier kick returns, averaging 23.8 yards per return as Akron ranked 27th in kick return success rate.

Bad: Nick Gasser’s punts weren’t particularly returnable, but they were short, and Akron ranked just 116th in punt success rate.

Really, really bad: Akron ranked dead last in FBS in kickoff success rate. O’Leary and two others almost never found the end zone, and Akron ranked 77th in kick return average allowed. That’s a rough combination.

Quite the mixed bag. And everybody listed above is back, for better and worse.

2017 outlook

2017 Schedule & Projection Factors

Date Opponent Proj. S&P+ Rk Proj. Margin Win Probability 2-Sep at Penn State 8 -39.5 1% 9-Sep Ark.-Pine Bluff NR 30.2 96% 16-Sep Iowa State 57 -16.5 17% 23-Sep at Troy 79 -14.8 20% 30-Sep at Bowling Green 95 -9.7 29% 7-Oct Ball State 90 -6.0 36% 14-Oct at Western Michigan 74 -16.0 18% 21-Oct at Toledo 59 -21.4 11% 28-Oct Buffalo 128 7.1 66% 7-Nov at Miami (Ohio) 88 -11.4 26% 14-Nov Ohio 103 -2.7 44% 21-Nov Kent State 123 2.6 56%

Projected S&P+ Rk 122 Proj. Off. / Def. Rk 103 / 122 Projected wins 4.2 Five-Year S&P+ Rk -11.3 (109) 2- and 5-Year Recruiting Rk 129 / 123 2016 TO Margin / Adj. TO Margin* -8 / -9.0 2016 TO Luck/Game +0.4 Returning Production (Off. / Def.) 57% (63%, 51%) 2016 Second-order wins (difference) 4.8 (0.2)

I’ve talked myself into and out of Akron three or four times over the course of writing this preview. The Zips have mountainous upside on offense and are only a year removed from fielding one of the best mid-major defenses in the country.

However, both units collapsed at different rates last year. This offense has yet to produce consistently for weeks at a time, and it seems like Amato’s defense will be even thinner.

But injuries aren’t guaranteed. And QB Woodson looked awesome at times last year. And ... round and round we go.

What does S&P+ say? Not good things. It isn’t built to adequately project a team that utilizes quite this many transfers, and Akron’s recruiting rankings have been pretty poor.

S&P+ sees a squad that collapsed in 2016, doesn’t return a ton of production, and doesn’t have sturdy five-year recruits, or a sustained run of success, to fall back on. The result: an awful No. 122 projection and four projected wins.

I see something better than that — quite a bit better, perhaps — but ... depth, depth, depth.

It’s probably another high-upside, low-downside year at UA, then, huh? Akron is a wild card in the MAC, but I guess that makes sense considering the high-upside, low-downside head coach.

Team preview stats

All preview data to date.