Over the past 12 months, the Pennsylvania Industrial Market has seen a flurry of large-scale capital investment announcements which are forecasted to boost the fortunes of Quaker state residents and drive industrial employment. Federal policy initiatives started in 2022 under the Biden Administration with the CHIPS Act and more recently President Trump’s 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) which focused on reshoring and domestic production have been a key driver of growth. These federal policies have led site selectors and corporate occupiers to zero in on the State of Pennsylvania which has welcomed large enterprises with pro-business policies from the Shapiro Administration. However, one of the other key drivers has been utility capacity and according to the US EIA, the state is the second-largest natural gas producer in the nation while also having strong base load power from the nuclear sector. The state’s four nuclear power plants provided 31% of the state’s electricity net generation in 2024. With a tremendous pool of skilled labor, numerous universities and technical schools as well as land availability with rail and highway access, the state has been putting up impressive economic development figures. As the industrial leasing market stabilizes and the development pipeline from previous 3-4 years gets absorbed, many of these megaprojects have focused on build to suit construction. We are now watching these projects begin to take shape and the labor force will be transformed and local and regional supply chains will adapt to service these growing industries.
Notable PA Industrial project announcements over the last 12 months
(Source- individual company announcements)
Eli Lilly: (Jan 2026) $3.5 billion Lehigh Valley site will develop Lilly’s next-generation weight-loss medicines and the company plans to create more than 2,800 manufacturing and construction jobs.
Johnson & Johnson (Jan 2026) announced a more than $1 billion investment in a next generation cell therapy manufacturing facility in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. This new fcility will further expand the Company’s U.S. manufacturing capacity and support more than 500 skilled biomanufacturing jobs when fully operational and more than 4,000 construction jobs during site development.
GE Vernova (July 2025) plans to invest up to $100 million in Pennsylvania over the next two years, adding approximately 700 new jobs across multiple factories in the state that will help modernize the grid for economic growth, strengthen domestic supply chains, and boost national security. The industrial conglomerate plans to add 250 new jobs over the next two years at the company’s leading grid solutions factory in Charleroi, PA. The new roles will help manufacture more high voltage switchgear products, which are critical components for stable and reliable operation of the nation’s electrical grids.
DrinkPak: (Dec 2025) The company has announced 170 jobs coming to HRP’s Bellwether District Coming in early 2027. The company has broken ground on a 1.4 msf and build to suit as part of a 1300-acre redevelopment into a state-of-the-art campus, home for e-commerce, logistics, life science and innovation leaders
Hanwha Philly Shipyard: (Aug 2025) The $5 billion program will be dedicated to the installation of two additional docks to increase capacity. Through this expansion, Hanwha aims to increase Philly Shipyard’s annual production volume from less than two vessels to up to 20. This investment is also expected to create at least 5,000 new skilled labor jobs at the shipyard along with thousands of additional indirect jobs in the region.
Chad Buch is a commercial real estate market research and brokerage professional with 14 years of industrial sector experience spanning tenant representation, agency leasing, and investment sales. He currently serves as US Manager for Industrial/Supply Chain & Logistics Market Intelligence at Avison Young and previously spent a decade at JLL in Chicago, where he co-led the industrial research platform covering more than 1.3 billion square feet of inventory. He is licensed in both Illinois and Connecticut. Chad can be reached at cgbuch@gmail.com or 919-270-3162.
