Stabler Center 36,000-SF Spec Office Building Breaks Ground

CENTER VALLEY, PA-Doylestown-based Sierra Management Co. has begun construction for its first of three planned office buildings within the 1,600-acre Stabler Center. The initial building is spec, “like a model home,” Greg Kessell, Sierra’s president, tells GlobeSt.com. “As we lease up this one, we’ll prelease and begin construction of the others.”

The first building is a three-story structure containing 36,000 sf, and completion is scheduled for summer 2006. Kessell estimates the all-in cost, “excluding site work, is about $100 per sf.” West Chester-based the Norwood Co. is construction manager. Kessell says the asking rent rate is “$25 per sf, plus electric,” and Bill Wolf of the Lehigh Valley office of CB Richard Ellis is the listing broker.

The additional buildings, also three-story structures of similar architecture, will be 64,000 sf and 30,000 sf, respectively. “Tenant interest has been very high,” Kessell says, attributing it to the properties’ ease of access to Route 309 and Interstate 78 and the center’s high visibility. He expects at least one of the buildings to be leased by medical-related tenants, “given the site’s location and proximity to the Lehigh Valley’s major healthcare networks.”

The Shoppes at Saucon Valley, a 600,000-sf shopping center is currently under construction by Columbus, OH-based Stanbery Development in Stabler Center. Olympus America will headquarter at the center in spring 2006, and a new 175,000-sf operations center for Dunn & Bradstreet is expected to reach completion in the development late next year. Sierra also has plans to develop Saucon Creek Resort, an executive conference center.