Tony Iannelli, CEO and president of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce, addresses the crowd Thursday, April 14, 2022, during The Lehigh Valley Real Estate Development Outlook and Awards, presented by the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce and the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, at the Delta Hotel by Marriott in Breinigsville. (Rick Kintzel/The Morning Call)1 / 12

By EVAN JONES Morning Call

Optimism certainly wasn’t in short supply during the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce’s Real Estate Outlook program. Thursday’s presentation featured plenty of lofty numbers as the Valley’s economy continues to recover from the COVID downturn.

Becky Bradley, executive director of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission, said the region could see more than 27 million square feet of new warehouses approved by the end of this year.

Of that number, she said, 11.1 million square feet were added to the pipeline for the first quarter of 2022.

By comparison, over the last five years, 27.3 million square feet of new warehouse space has been approved by local governments in the Valley.

Speaking in the ballroom of the Delta Hotel by Marriott in Upper Macungie Township, Bradley emphasized that those numbers were for Lehigh and Northampton counties alone, and did not include data from surrounding counties that are incorporated by other analysts.[More Business] ‘This is safety. This is economics’: A week after the stretch of Route 611 closes, Delaware Water Gap businesses, officials push for repairs »

Of course, there was growth in other sectors, including housing, which can’t be built fast enough for a growing population. LVPC figures have 5,746 residential units reviewed in 2021, the most since 2007, and 1,332 more have been proposed so far this year.

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