Non-Residential Construction Report, 2024

Each year, beginning in 2020, the Chester County Planning Commission has completed a report of non-residential construction in the county. The report includes data on the number of projects and new square feet for agricultural, commercial, industrial, and institutional projects. Both additions to existing buildings and new construction are included in the report.

When evaluating non-residential data, the Chester County Planning Commission acknowledges that non-residential data can vary between years due to a small data set, and large projects can cause significant changes. Furthermore, meaningful overarching trends will not become clear until additional years are recorded. This report provides an overview of current conditions, and subsequent reports will better portray trends, strengths, and challenges for non-residential development in the county.

New non-residential construction saw highs in 2017 and 2018, peaking at 1,466,203 new square feet in 2018. Construction from 2019 through 2024 has ranged from lows of 915,348 in 2023 to highs of 1,139,699 in 2021. The number of projects saw a high of 83 projects in 2019, with a low of 34 projects in 2024. Commercial and institutional projects had the highest total number of both square feet and projects from 2016-2024.

In 2024, East Whiteland, West Fallowfield, and West Goshen had the greatest total new non-residential square feet, West Goshen, East Marlborough, and West Chester had the greatest commercial, Uwchlan, West Whiteland, and West Brandywine had the most new industrial square feet, and East Whiteland Township, East Pikeland, and West Sadsbury had the highest new institutional construction. West Fallowfield was the only municipality to have agricultural building development.

West Goshen, West Whiteland, East Whiteland Townships had the highest cumulative number of non-residential projects built from 2016-2024, at 37, 33, and 24 projects respectively. East Whiteland, West Goshen, Tredyffrin, and West Whiteland Townships had the highest cumulative amount of non-residential construction from 2016-2024.

Methodology

For projects built prior to 2019, a list of proposed additions and new non-residential projects was generated from the Chester County Planning Commission's permit data for projects proposed from 2010-2019. The data included year proposed, location, description, non-residential type (agricultural, commercial, industrial, or institutional), and square feet. Assessment data was then used to determine the construction year for the permit data. Projects were assumed completed when significant changes in assessment value were recorded. Historical Google aerial imagery was then used to confirm completion of projects with assessment change and identify additional completed projects. Approximate years were assigned for built projects when the exact construction year was unavailable on aerial imagery. All other projects were assumed to remain incomplete.

For 2019 through 2020 new non-residential building data, an annual permit data list was generated for projects proposed in the previous year and added to the list of outstanding projects. The identified projects were then sent to municipalities for review. Finally, site visits were completed to ascertain status of any projects that did not receive municipal review.

For 2021 and 2022 followed the prior years' process, with an addition of utilizing Nearmap imagery to determine completed projects. Because the latest available imagery was from October 2021, any projects which were partially built in the imagery were reviewed by site visits in February 2022. For 2023 and 2024 Nearmap imagery was used. Projects were considered completed when a building was built and functional. For projects with multiple buildings constructed over multiple years, project duplicates were created, counting the project as multiple separate projects, with square feet being included in the year they were built.

For projects over 10,000 square feet prior to 2021, aerial imagery was cross referenced with the approved building plans to obtain updated building square feet added. For 2021 through 2023 projects, any changes for all projects from original plans were noted and square footage was adjusted using measurement tools in Nearmap. If final building matched the original plan, the submitted square footage was used.

Building type was obtained through submitted plan data, and updated as needed. Projects with more than one building type were counted as .5 of a project.

Due to methodology changes, data from prior years may have changed due to previous inaccuracies in completion status.