It all started with speculation.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Since its inception, Mericle has developed more than 160 buildings \u2014 housing nearly 250 companies \u2014 throughout 21 Northeast Pennsylvania business parks, said Jim Cummings, Mericle\u2019s vice president of marketing. About 20,000 people work in the buildings Mericle has developed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen 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,\u201d Cummings said. \u201cAs 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bob Durkin, president of the Greater Scranton Chamber of Commerce, praised Mericle\u2019s founder \u2014 Robert Mericle \u2014 for his ingenuity and bravado.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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,\u201d he said. \u201cI 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI 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\u2019re way ahead of the curve. That gives us more bandwidth in terms of regional economic development attraction and it\u2019s because the guy has tremendous economic development guts to put money on the line first. I\u2019d say it\u2019s taking a chance but when you do things as well as they do, it\u2019s a calculated investment and it\u2019s paying off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cummings noted the CenterPoint Commerce & Trade Park \u2014 which spans 14 million square feet in Pittston Twp. and Jenkins Twp. \u2014 represents Mericle\u2019s largest project.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough 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,\u201d he said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
CenterPoint contains 63 buildings comprising 85 companies and more than 8,000 employees, Cummings added.<\/p>\n
CrossRoads East Business Park \u2014 under construction in Hazle Twp. \u2014 mirrors the size of CenterPoint and has the potential to have a similar economic impact, Cummings said.<\/p>\n
John Augustine III, president and CEO of Penn\u2019s Northeast, a regional economic development agency, agrees.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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,\u201d he said. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cummings feels Mericle\u2019s ability to evolve with changing times will allow the company to continue attracting firms for many more years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been able to grow and sharpen our model as a vertically integrated developer,\u201d he said. \u201cMost developers rely on construction managers, general contractors and subcontractors to complete their projects, which can slow construction and increase costs. We\u2019ve 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Durkin described Mericle as an approachable guy and a \u201cmaster of economic development\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe should be teaching the course for everybody because he really knows it inside and out,\u201d Durkin said. \u201cThey\u2019ve partnered with us and we\u2019ve partnered with them in different spaces, including some properties in the Jessup Small Business Center. It\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Augustine feels Mericle\u2019s flexibility helps the company remain a consistent force in the economic development picture.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things they\u2019ve done well is grow with the area and the economy \u2014 knowing what products to build, and what size companies are looking for,\u201d he said. \u201cThat changes all the time. We\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having a diverse portfolio of manufacturing, warehouse distribution and office space shelters the company from recessions and downturns in economic cycles, Augustine added.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people don\u2019t 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,\u201d he said. \u201cBeing 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/HZS-L-MERICLE-1125-04.jpg\")
The first building at CrossRoads East Business Park in Hazle Twp. has 372,000 square feet. (Submitted)
\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/HZS-L-MERICLE-1125-01.jpg\")
A building in Humboldt Industrial Park at 620 Oak Ridge Road in Hazle Twp. (Submitted)
\n![\"Jim](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/STT-L-CUMMINGS-0913-01.jpg\")
Jim Cummings, Mericle\u2019s vice president of marketing. (SUBMITTED)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It all started with speculation. As Mericle Commercial Real Estate Services marks its 40th anniversary, the company carries…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284921,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[60,201,182,803,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-284920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-business","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-luzerne-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284920\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}