PITTSBURGH, PA – August 4, 2021 – Leech Tishman Real Estate Practice Group Chair Kenneth C. Foltz, Sr. and attorney Julia Wu recently represented RPL East, LLC in a cooperative financing and redevelopment agreement with the Bangor Area Commercial and Industrial Development Authority (“IDA”) concerning the removal of a retired coal power plant on the Delaware River.
Under this agreement, the IDA acquired a retired coal-fired electric generation plant and adjacent land on the Delaware River in Upper Mount Bethel, Pennsylvania. As part of the agreement, RPL East, LLC loaned money to the IDA to purchase the 161-acre property. The IDA plans to work collaboratively with RPL East, LLC to pursue public and private grant money to remediate, dismantle, and demolish more than 700,000 square feet of industrial infrastructure including two 480-foot-tall stacks.
The property sits directly across the street from River Pointe Logistics Park, a proposed manufacturing and logistics industrial park that will be tucked among some 725 acres of tiered hillside and will offer 5 miles of publicly accessible hiking trails. When complete, River Pointe Logistics Park will provide an estimated 5,700 jobs. The master plan is designed to attract manufacturing businesses by utilizing the forward-thinking township zoning ordinances for the creation of industrial parks.
Ken Foltz, Leech Tishman Real Estate Chair, stated, “We would like to congratulate our client RPL East, LLC and its President Lou Pektor as well as the Bangor Area Commercial and Industrial Authority in forging this forward-thinking public-private partnership. The Real Estate team at Leech Tishman was pleased to assist in facilitating this agreement and creating this partnership. We expect this project will serve as a model for developers and communities seeking to redevelop similarly-challenged industrial sites.”
Leech Tishman’s Real Estate Practice Group
Leech Tishman’s Real Estate Practice Group is skilled in handling a broad range of sophisticated and complex commercial real estate transactions. Our property attorneys regularly handle real estate legal matters involving commercial acquisition, sales and lease transactions, as well as complex development projects, including multi-use and/or multi-tenant projects, shopping centers, condominiums and planned communities and projects involving historic tax credits, as well as other tax credit structures.