Arcadia Cold breaks ground on cold-storage facility

Arcadia Cold, a company providing third-party handling, storage, distribution, and value-added services for the food industry, recently broke ground on its Hazleton Cold Storage Facility off I-81.

The facility will store 30,000 frozen and refrigerated pallets and will be a hub for the Northeast states, allowing it to serve food manufacturing and end-user demands quickly and efficiently.

This is Arcadia’s third U.S. groundbreaking of their national cold storage platform to be developed in strategic markets across the United States. The company, with headquarters in Austin, Texas, considers Hazleton a growing market in Pennsylvania and a natural location to serve as a hub for a distribution point.

“We anticipate leveraging this strategic site to support our customers’ need for a quality Northeastern U.S. regional distribution hub that offers a variety of value-added service offerings in this 30,000 pallet facility,” said Arcadia Cold CEO Chris Hughes.

CAN DO of Greater Hazleton, an economic developer in Northeastern Pennsylvania, hosted the groundbreaking ceremony.

“CAN DO is excited to welcome Arcadia Cold Storage and Logistics to the Humboldt Industrial Park,” Joe Lettiere, CAN DO president, said, “Food manufacturing and food-related industry has been a strategic focus for our organization for many years, making this locate mutually beneficial. Most importantly, Arcadia’s plan to hire between 80-90 employees at family-sustaining wages will positively impact the Greater Hazleton community as a whole.”

Attending the event were numerous business and government officials, including state Sen. David Argall (R-Berks/Carbon/Schuylkill); state Rep. Robert Schnee (R-Luzerne County); and Mary Malone, Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce president.

“One of our top priorities is new, family-sustaining jobs for our region,” said Sen. Argall said. “Thanks to the advocacy efforts of CAN DO, this new facility will create 80 to 90 new jobs – just the latest of thousands of new jobs brought to the area in recent years.”