$335M Allentown plant will be FedEx's largest

"The ($335 million) FedEx Ground terminal planned in Northampton County will bring hundreds of jobs to the Lehigh Valley and become the company's largest warehouse and logistics hub among 34 it operates nationwide," Allentown Morning Call reports here, citing FexEx strategy VP Stephanie Cohen.

The plant will process up to 75,000 items an hour. Groundbreaking is scheduled for later in June. "Job-seekers and e-tailers likely will have to wait until late 2018 before the megahub opens," the Call added. After scouting several sites, FedEx plans to build the warehouse on Willow Brook Farms, a horse farm owned by the Lehigh-Northampton Airport Authority.

The Lehigh Valley is one of several areas of upstate Pennsylvania that have attracted retail distribution centers and thousands of jobs from Amazon, Wal-Mart, Zulily and other big companies drawn by cheap land and labor and proximity to free Interstate highways connecting the Northeast, Midwest and South.

Compared to elsewhere in Pennsylvania, the FedEx site is especially close to Lehigh Valley International Airport, which has battled Philadelphia for commercial routes, and to New York.