It all started with speculation.
As Mericle Commercial Real Estate Services marks its 40th anniversary, the company carries forward the same blueprint for success: providing employers with ready-made buildings to conduct business.
Since its inception, Mericle has developed more than 160 buildings — housing nearly 250 companies — throughout 21 Northeast Pennsylvania business parks, said Jim Cummings, Mericle’s vice president of marketing. About 20,000 people work in the buildings Mericle has developed.
“When we started building on speculation close to 40 years ago, our buildings were modest in size, typically in the 30,000 square feet to 50,000 square feet range,” Cummings said. “As Mericle grew in size, so did our buildings. We became the first developer in the region to construct a spec building in excess of 100,000 square feet, then 250,000 square feet, then 500,000 square feet, and finally 1 million square feet.”
Bob Durkin, president of the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce, praised Mericle’s founder — Robert Mericle — for his ingenuity and bravado.
“The Scranton Lackawanna Industrial Building Company (SLIBCO), Greater Hazleton Can Do Inc. and Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce, in past history, were always in the economic development realm for many decades because there was no real, serious private capital being brought to do development in Northeastern Pennsylvania,” he said. “I think one can make the argument that the whole situation completely changed, as we sit here today, with reputable private developers coming into our area, investing, and creating jobs.
“I think you could really draw the line back to when Rob Mericle started doing his aggressive developments. When you build in substantial scale on spec the way Mericle does, now you have a whole host of different prospects and you’re way ahead of the curve. That gives us more bandwidth in terms of regional economic development attraction and it’s because the guy has tremendous economic development guts to put money on the line first. I’d say it’s taking a chance but when you do things as well as they do, it’s a calculated investment and it’s paying off.”
Cummings noted the CenterPoint Commerce & Trade Park — which spans 14 million square feet in Pittston Twp. and Jenkins Twp. — represents Mericle’s largest project.
“Through a public-private partnership, we developed land that had been fallow for decades, much of it scarred by past coal mining, and turned it into a premier business park,” he said. “We developed all but a handful of the buildings in CenterPoint on speculation, without tenants in hand, and filled them with a wide variety of companies.”
CenterPoint contains 63 buildings comprising 85 companies and more than 8,000 employees, Cummings added.
CrossRoads East Business Park — under construction in Hazle Twp. — mirrors the size of CenterPoint and has the potential to have a similar economic impact, Cummings said.
John Augustine III, president and CEO of Penn’s Northeast, a regional economic development agency, agrees.
“The location is great with highway access, and having new buildings for us to help market is crucial to being able to attract companies who, in the last five years, are shifting more toward having a building that is ready to go,” he said. “I believe that trade center is going to be the next success story in industrial development that companies will be flocking to when looking at Northeastern Pennsylvania.”
Cummings feels Mericle’s ability to evolve with changing times will allow the company to continue attracting firms for many more years.
“We’ve been able to grow and sharpen our model as a vertically integrated developer,” he said. “Most developers rely on construction managers, general contractors and subcontractors to complete their projects, which can slow construction and increase costs. We’ve developed all of the skills we need in house, which allows us to build faster and be more competitive with our lease prices. This also makes it possible for us to complete very sophisticated interior fit-outs for tenants, including for major manufacturing firms, resulting in more buildings, more leases and more new jobs for the area.”
Durkin described Mericle as an approachable guy and a “master of economic development”
“He should be teaching the course for everybody because he really knows it inside and out,” Durkin said. “They’ve partnered with us and we’ve partnered with them in different spaces, including some properties in the Jessup Small Business Center. It’s always a pleasure for myself, and our team, to work with Rob and his team. I look forward to even more success as we move forward, and as they continue to expand their footprint.”
Augustine feels Mericle’s flexibility helps the company remain a consistent force in the economic development picture.
“One of the things they’ve done well is grow with the area and the economy — knowing what products to build, and what size companies are looking for,” he said. “That changes all the time. We’re not currently seeing a lot of million-square-foot buildings anymore. The space companies are (now) looking for is more (around) 200,000 square feet. Mericle had a great crystal ball in seeing those trends.”
Having a diverse portfolio of manufacturing, warehouse distribution and office space shelters the company from recessions and downturns in economic cycles, Augustine added.
Augustine also stressed that Mericle laid the framework as the first company in Northeast Pennsylvania to build on speculative development and proved the market was a desirable place.
“A lot of people don’t realize what it takes to put your own money out there in a risky environment and spend millions of dollars to build a building and hope a company comes and takes it,” he said. “Being the only private company to take a risk on Northeastern Pennsylvania, and build on spec, created momentum where other companies followed suit. Without them doing that first, the economic landscape would look a lot different.”
The first building at CrossRoads East Business Park in Hazle Twp. has 372,000 square feet. (Submitted)
A building in Humboldt Industrial Park at 620 Oak Ridge Road in Hazle Twp. (Submitted)
Jim Cummings, Mericle’s vice president of marketing. (SUBMITTED)