A European electrical equipment manufacturer will take one of the new warehouses in Palmer Township’s Chrin Commerce Centre, creating more than 100 jobs.
ABB announced Wednesday it will open a distribution center for its Installation Products Division at Carson 33. The 350,000-square-foot building is located at 1000 Carson Court, adjacent to an Amazon Fulfillment Center and a UPS Hub. It is on the north side of Main Street and near its intersection with Route 33.
The building had been vacant since California-based Carson Companies completed it in 2021.
Carson already has a presence in the 800-acre complex with buildings on the other side of Route 33 that house Well Woven, a rug manufacturer, NRI, an apparel order fulfillment company and Scholastic, which distributes children’s books.
In March, Carson purchased 95 acres at 1571 Van Buren Road, where it will build five warehouses in two phases. The buildings will cover about 1.14 million square feet and will take up one of two lots.
The second lot, that faces Main Street, covers 18 acres and will feature future retail.
Matthias Heilmann, president of ABB Installation, said the investment adds more than $100 million in U.S. expansion in the past few years.
“The United States is ABB’s largest single growth market, and the company has invested over $14 billion in the U.S. since 2010,” Heilmann said in a statement. “Regionalizing our global supply chain in the Lehigh Valley community reduces our carbon footprint by bringing us closer to our customers to continue to meet their needs for safe, smart and sustainable electrification solutions.”
The distribution center is expected to open in January 2023. It will stock more than 5,000 electrical medium voltage products such as cable ties, commercial boxes and fittings and other cable accessories. Presently, these products are delivered from a facility in Mississippi.
The company said it expects the location to reduce delivery times by 50% to its customers in the Northeast.
This adds to ABB’s Pennsylvania footprint which includes an instrumentation manufacturing center in Warminster Township, Bucks County.
ABB Installation Products designs, manufactures and markets products used to manage the connection, protection and distribution of electrical power in industrial, construction and utility applications.
Morning Call reporter Evan Jones can be reached at ejones@mcall.com.
