Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation President and CEO Don Cunningham offered a comprehensive economic snapshot of the region during the June 5 meeting of the Northampton County Council. “Inflationary pressures are very real. But without the growth and income we’re seeing, it would be a lot more challenging,” he said.

Cunningham began with some interesting numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Department of Commerce:

• Lehigh and Northampton counties have a combined 708,644 residents – 28 percent growth since 1995.

• The two counties’ gross domestic product, or the annual total monetary value of all final goods and services produced, is $55.7 billion. “To bring some perspective to that, that’s more economic output coming out of our own back yard here than three states in the United States,” Cunningham said, presenting a slide that showed the GDP of Lehigh and Northampton counties being greater than that of Alaska, Wyoming or Vermont.

• The area’s top producing industries by GDP are manufacturing ($9 billion); finance, insurance and real estate ($8.7 billion), and health care and education ($8.4 billion).

• There are 340,938 jobs in the region – a 37 percent growth over 30 years.

• Median annual household income for the region is $81,709. Compare that to the $76,081 median income across Pennsylvania.

• The Lehigh Valley’s poverty rate is 10.5 percent vs. Pennsylvania’s 11.8 percent.

Cunningham then highlighted a roll call of manufacturers that have launched growth/capital projects in Northampton County over the last 18 months: HAWE (pronounced ha-VAY) Hydraulik in Bethlehem Township; cement equipment manufacturer FL Smidth, which moved its headquarters to Allen Township; pharmaceutical technology company GfM in South Bethlehem (at the former IQE building); defense contractor D. Gillette Industrial Services in Forks Township; Lehigh County-headquartered nut, chocolate, and dried fruit purveyor Bazzini (which is expanding into Hanover Township); and semiconductor manufacturers Coherent (Forks Township) and Infinera (South Bethlehem).

“We’ve been lobbying the state for some changes to the semiconductor tax incentive bill, which hopefully will make its way through this process so we can grow companies here instead of losing companies to Texas and other states that are doing more to encourage growth of these companies,” Cunningham said.

“It’s become much, much more challenging in the Lehigh Valley to get manufacturing sites developed,” Cunningham said, mentioning that the LVEDC 2025-2027 strategic plan includes creative redevelopment and reuse of brownfield sites and engagement of policymakers and developers.

When vice president John Goffredo asked about the area’s real estate vacancy rate, Cunningham said, “The Lehigh Valley market runs at about 5 percent vacancy in industrial.” However, he said, because properties can cost between $10 to $11 per square foot to lease, they tend to stay vacant. Most manufacturing facilities require a maximum of 250,000 square feet, according to Cunningham.

“When folks are opposed to 500,000- to a million-square-foot industrial buildings, maybe for e-commerce, it becomes very difficult to get approvals even for smaller industrial buildings,” he said.

The strategic plan will also focus on targeted development by spreading the word about what the area has to offer among the life sciences, pharmaceuticals, biomedical, advanced manufacturing, technology, professional and creative services, food and beverage processing, and start-up sectors.

“We can go to a prospective employer and say, ‘We have 3,000 people working in this sector living within this 60-mile radius,’” Cunningham said.

The plan also includes the marketing of Lehigh Valley sports and outdoor recreation tourism, as well as “experiential” tourism that focus on the area’s history, culture, cuisine and “quality of place.”

Council member Jeff Warren asked if the sports tourism plan could include adding something akin to the Spooky Nook Sports complex in Lancaster County.

“For a market our size, we ought to have more of those types of facilities,” Cunningham said.

To support future talent supply and demand needs, LVEDC’s plan also aims to create a unified partnership between education/training communities and employers to fill the region’s skills gaps and workforce needs. This includes job opportunities for high school and college students while they’re still in school, such as apprenticeships and internships.

To achieve the initiative to “build partnerships and place,” the plan calls for growing public-private coalitions and coalitions on unified regional marketing.

“What we want is people to understand what Northampton County and the Lehigh Valley are today; not what they were when Billy Joel was writing songs,” Cunningham said, referring to the 1983 hit song “Allentown.”

Get a look at the full strategic plan at lehighvalley.org/mission-vision-strategy.