Former furniture plant site redeveloped into Penn House Commons in Lewisburg

Penn House Commons in Lewisburg has been cleaned up and redeveloped from the former Pennsylvania House furniture plant into a roughly 40-acre mixed-use site with a GIANT Food Store, CVS Pharmacy, restaurants, housing and a hotel.

The cleanup moved through Pennsylvania’s Land Recycling Program, known as Act 2, which was established by Acts 2, 3 and 4 of 1995 to encourage voluntary cleanup and reuse of contaminated industrial and commercial sites. EPA records show the Pennsylvania House facility had been in business since the early 1930s, and the plant’s hazardous materials were mainly furniture finishes containing mineral spirits and solvents.

After a furniture-stain spill in March 1988, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection required Pennsylvania House to begin assessment and cleanup. More than 1,215 tons of contaminated soil were removed from the site and placed in an approved landfill. EPA records list the soil as containing methyl ethyl ketone, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene, and DEP approved the remediation in April 1995. EPA now lists human exposure and groundwater migration at the site as under control.

The redevelopment also includes The Miller Center, a 110,000-square-foot recreation and wellness facility built through adaptive reuse of a 92,000-square-foot abandoned warehouse once used by Pennsylvania House. The project also required wetland, stream and floodplain permitting, traffic studies, stormwater management and PennDOT transportation improvements.