The warehouse wars of Southern New Castle County are never over, it would seem.

A 2.4 million square-foot LogistiCenter warehouse project north of Middletown, ardently opposed by nearby residents and the subject of litigation by its developer, looks to be getting sent back to the trenches.

County Councilman David Carter signaled Wednesday that he plans to withdraw an ordinance that would have greenlit the long-delayed, long-planned “LogistiCenter at New Castle County” — a hulking two-warehouse project near the Village of Bayberry, at Route 301 west of Jamison Corner Road.

The project was previously poised for approval by New Castle County Council, after the Department of Land Use attested that the project was compliant with county code.

But on Tuesday, the Department of Land Use issued a letter rescinding that previous approval. So what gives? Is the warehouse dead? And what changed? Here’s what’s happening.

The LogistiCenter has long been a controversial project, and the subject of a lawsuit

The LogistiCenter at New Castle County, first proposed in 2021, has long been one of the larger and more controversial projects in a New Castle County warehouse boom that has ignited concerns from residents over the potential for house-shaking, window-rattling truck traffic near residential neighborhoods.

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The plans, from Nevada-based Dermody Properties, include two side-by-side logistics warehouses on 229 acres of land along Jamison Corner Road, totaling 1.4 million square feet and 962,000 square feet in size.

Local residents opposed the plans in council meetings, with pages of public outcry decrying future traffic or threats to public safety, and speculating that the site is destined to become an Amazon fulfillment center.

Representatives for Dermody said in council meetings they had no particular end users in mind, and that traffic would likely be better than a business park of the same size.

This sets up a familiar conflict in the previously rural lands south of the canal in New Castle County, as a massive influx of new residents and would-be warehouse developers fight over limited capacity on roads originally designed for rural populations.

The flood of affluent new residents resoundingly commutes outside the area for work. New warehouses bring truck traffic, but also daily commutes from warehouse workers who likely cannot afford the new half-million-dollar houses nearby.

The LogistiCenter would arrive just north of the rapidly expanding planned community of Bayberry north of Middletown, which has expanded by at least 1,700 homes since 2010. Construction is likely to begin this year on at least 500 more Bayberry homes, in addition to a shopping complex that will include a Weis Markets.

Amid resistance and traffic concerns, the LogistiCenter has been stalled for months.

By late 2023 the project had passed Land Use and state review, and moved to County Council for approval. A quirk of New Castle County law means that whatever a building’s unpopularity, councilmembers cannot deny a project that has met all zoning and code requirements.

Beginning in December, southern New Castle County councilmembers Bill Bell and David Carter instead sent the project back to the Department of Land Use for a series of technical clarifications about traffic and infrastructure, saying they believed the project did not meet code.

The LogistiCenter ordinance was tabled in December 2023, then tabled again, then left on the table for so long it might as well have been a flower arrangement.

In April, Dermody filed a lawsuit against the county, claiming that consideration of the project was willfully and arbitrarily delayed — and demanded an expedient answer by the Department of Land Use.

For the moment, it appears Dermody finally has its answer: “No.”

Why did Land Use approve, then un-approve the LogistiCenter project?

Land Use’s response gave credence to some of the concerns laid out by Councilmen Bell and Carter.

In a letter dated Tuesday, June 4, the Department called it rare, but hardly unheard of, that members of County Council would find code compliance issues that Land Use had not considered when approving a project. The letter called this process part of the normal checks and balances when considering a project.

The issues in play were technical, but the eventual conclusion drawn in the letter was relatively straightforward. The LogistiCenter project would likely generate far too much traffic — 427 trips a day during evening rush hour — to avoid doing an additional traffic study.

Previously, the project had received a waiver on this, because of a 2013 traffic study already conducted by the state. But County Council’s objections and questions prompted a deeper review, according to the Land Use letter.

The conclusion was that the warehouse likely would increase traffic on Jamison Corner Road by as much as 15% compared to projected levels, making a traffic waiver “inappropriate.” The benchmark for a traffic impact study waiver is a mere 5% increase.

“Moving forward, the Applicant has two options under the UDC,” reads the assessment from Land Use. “(1) revise its Plans to reduce the proposed trip generation consistent with the TID; or (2) complete a Traffic Impact Study (TIS) for the as-proposed development.”

Which is to say: Make the project generate less traffic, or do a traffic study to show that the existing plan could be supported by current infrastructure.

What’s next for the LogistiCenter plans near Bayberry

Councilman Carter praised the Land Use department, saying he believed they’d taken his and Councilman Bell’s technical questions seriously, in a long and complicated review. He plans to withdraw the LogistiCenter ordinance at the County Council meeting on Tuesday, June 11, he said, after Land Use’s rescission of approval. He noted that this result doesn’t reject the project, nor even send it back to the drawing board.

“Essentially what is required for this LogistiCenter is merely that they come back and demonstrate that the traffic that results will not cause infrastructure problems,” Carter said.

Dermody has until fall to conduct such a study, Carter noted. The LogistiCenter would again be eligible for council approval if the results are favorable.

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In the meantime, warehouse construction will continue apace nearby. Another warehouse project is well on its way just across Jamison Corner from the LogistiCenter.

The Scott Run Commerce project, approved in 2023 on the east side of Jamison Corner Road, will add about 1.4 million square feet of warehouses in four buildings just south of Hyetts Corner Road.

Three of those planned buildings, totaling nearly 1.3 million square feet of warehouse or industrial space, are still available for lease to the right tenant.

Matthew Korfhage is business and development reporter in the Delaware region covering all things related to land and money: openings and closings, construction, and the many corporations who call the First State home. Send tips and insults to mkorfhage@gannett.com.

Long-percolated plans for warehouses totaling more than 2 million square feet

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Massive Logisticenter warehouses near Middletown, get approval revoked