This 1.5 Million-Dollar, 15,000 SF project is located in South Whitehall Township at the Crest Plaza Shopping Center.

Permits were submitted on 7/27/02 to the Township. A permit to proceed on foundations was received on 8/14/02. The permit on the shell was received on 9/27/02 with a list of conditions that had to be satisfied before occupancy would be granted by the Township.

Construction was started on 8/15/02 and had to be completed and opened early enough to allow Eckerd to move into the new store so the existing Strip Mall Store could be demolished and the site reworked for the new Target Store. A January 20th deadline was set by Target on the Developer, Preit-Rubin, Inc. to have the pad ready for their construction. If this deadline was not met there was a Liquidated Damage of $500,000.00 set as a penalty. There was also the risk of losing Target as their anchor tenant for the mall. From the beginning of the project it was clear that there was no room for failure.

Several factors made this project Challenging;

1. The Developer is from Philadelphia, the Civil Engineer is from Philadelphia, the Architect is from New York City, The Structural Engineer is from Maryland and the MEP Engineer is from New Jersey. Eckerd has several activities like signs, phones, registers, coolers, shelving, security, manager’s office and merchandise controlled as direct contracts out of their Pittsburgh Office. All were unaware of the high standards of construction required by South Whitehall Township.

2. The site work and demolition contracts were handled by Preit under separate contracts and required co-ordination with throughout the project. 

3. Interface with the public and the stores that remained open during the construction. 

4. Construction Drawings of this new Proto-type store were reworked by the Design Team, but there were still many details that had to be resolved in the field. There were many that had to be adjusted to meet the high standards of construction required by South Whitehall Township.

5. The original plumbing contractor failed to keep up with the construction schedule. Initially we supplied manpower and equipment to help expedite their work. After exhausting every possibility to allow them to complete the project, we were forced to bring in another contractor to complete the work and repair items that did not meet the required quality.

6. Existing power and communications lines ran through the center of the building. The relocation of these lines had to be co-ordinated by the Developer and the Site Contractor with the Utilities. The power line relocation was not completed until 10/01/02 and the telephone and cable lines were still in the way of erecting the steel. Over 30 days delay was encountered waiting for the relocation of the Utility Lines.

7. Over twenty-two days were lost due to weather conditions including an 11/30/02 snow storm that stopped work on the exterior of the building.

The project covered 138 calendar days with 52 days lost due to Permit allocation, utility relocation and weather. When the lost days are deducted from the time line, the result is an 86 day construction schedule.

Eckerd was moved into the store and opened for business on 1/04/03.