Paving of the access road for construction vehicles into the former New Jersey Zinc Co. has been completed.

George Petroles, the chief operating officer of Northface Development LLC, said the 300-foot access road has been paved and construction vehicles are using it. Northface took over the property after it was abandoned in 2002.Construction on the access road began in late September. Northface was required to have it paved by mid-December, Peter Kern, president of the Palmerton Chamber of Commerce, told members at a meeting in October."It looks like it will be an improvement," Kern said.Petroles said they pressed to get the entrance done as quickly as possible to relieve traffic on Mauch Chunk Road in Palmerton.UGI has begun putting in a gas line along Mauch Chunk Road that will run toward Bowmanstown and Lehighton. Petroles said the combination of the gas line construction and his construction trucks just made for a logistically difficult situation."We're just trying to make it work," he said.Residents could see a "30 percent reduction of traffic on Mauch Chunk Road," because of the construction of the access route from Delaware Avenue, Kern said.Northface paid for the access road, but needed to get a temporary access permit from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for the first 300 feet."It's just a construction entrance," Petroles said.The road intersects with Delaware Avenue just outside the access ramps to Route 248.Ronald Young, the District 5 press officer for PennDOT, said the permit restricts use of the road to right-in and right-out access during the construction and development of the property."They have not applied for their full highway occupancy permit for permanent driveway access for the business," Young said.Right-in/right-out access means that construction traffic can enter Northface from Delaware Avenue heading toward the Route 248 ramps from Palmerton. Traffic coming from Route 248 toward Palmerton will not be able to turn left into the construction site."It was paved as per PennDOT's plans for our site," Petroles said.Northface is in the process of remediating the heavy metals in the ground at the former zinc plant. The high levels of zinc and other heavy metals caused it to be labeled as a brownfield site by the state Department of Environmental Protection, he said.Petroles said he expects it to take another five years before remediation is complete at the 140-acre industrial park. Multiple layers of material are being compacted in order to form the cap, he said. The cap will provide a subbase for construction and infrastructure development.In the meantime, Petroles said he has fielded many phone calls in the past 18 months from prospective end-use developers. He hopes to phase the site into the development process next year, once the first 30 acres is completely capped and ready for development. In this first phase, he is also considering plans to build a 450-square-foot warehouse that the company may build as an end user is found.There are plans are two points of entry, which have been approved by PennDOT, Petroles said. The first entrance is the newly paved construction access road off Delaware Avenue. The other entrance will be on the east end of the site and will have a metered light to allow traffic to come in and out of the industrial park. This entrance would be off Route 248 heading toward Lehighton.