BUTLER
Pallets in Butler County
Butler County's pallet trade centres on Cranberry Township, where I-79 crosses the Pennsylvania Turnpike and a cluster of engineering and equipment makers ships steady, smaller lots.
- Seat
- Butler
- Population, 2020
- 193,763
- Area
- 795 sq mi
01 The county in outline
Butler County covers 795 square miles, and its seat is the city of Butler. Interstates 76, 79 and 80 run through it, along with US 19 and 422 and a long list of Pennsylvania routes. The Allegheny River touches its northeast and southeast corners, and creeks such as the Connoquenessing and Slippery Rock drain the rest. Cranberry Township is the largest township.
02 Who ships from here
Nuclear engineering, coatings, safety equipment, pharmacy automation and grocery distribution are the trades named for this county. They tend to ship equipment and components, not bulk commodities, so pallets are often new or combo, built to a spec, and the batches recur but are modest.
03 What to ask for
- Custom footprints and stated ratings for equipment.
- Clean new or grade A for customer-facing shipments.
- HT where equipment is crated for overseas.
04 Two parks that show the pattern
Jackson's Pointe, in Jackson Township near Route 19 and Lindsay Road, was approved in September 2010 as five flex warehouse buildings on about 55 acres, with 352,000 square feet in all, according to the Butler Eagle in December 2012. UPS was named as the occupant of one of the first buildings.
At Victory Road Industrial Park in Clinton Township, supervisors approved a 220,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution building in 2020, built by SunCap Property Group. Both parks show how warehouse space grew up beside the highways in the south of the county.
05 The north of the county
North of Cranberry the county is a mix of farmland, small towns and the city of Butler, a county seat with its own shops and small plants. A pile there is likely to be modest and mixed, in contrast with the larger docks along I-79.
06 Cranberry Township
Cranberry Township, in Butler County where I-79 meets the Pennsylvania Turnpike, is a manufacturing and engineering centre of about 20,500 jobs. Its freight is equipment and coatings.
Roads built for it
A $44.3 million PennDOT and Turnpike interchange connecting I-79, the Turnpike, US 19 and PA 228 opened in 2004. The MSA Thruway, a $12 million tunnel under Route 228 linking I-79 to Cranberry Springs, was finished in the fall of 2021. I-279 ends about six miles to the south.
The employers around it
More than 1,000 businesses operate in the township. Operations named include McKesson Automation, PPG Architectural Coatings, Kawneer, MSA Safety, Gatan, Giant Eagle and Westinghouse Electric, which employs more than 3,000 at its Cranberry campus, which moved its headquarters here from Monroeville in 2009. Cranberry Woods Business Park and an industrial park dating to the mid-1960s hold many of them.
Pallet needs
| Trade | Pallet |
|---|---|
| Coatings (drums, pails) | 48 x 48 or 48 x 42, block; dry |
| Safety equipment | New, 48 x 40 or custom |
| Engineering components | Custom crates, HT if exported |
| Grocery | 48 x 40 grade A or B |
Recurring batches are modest, so a standing spec on truckloads or a spec sheet on new and custom fits.
Two parks, two kinds of freight
Cranberry Woods is a business park and the site of the Westinghouse campus. Offices send few pallets, but the equipment, lab supplies and products they handle arrive on them.
Thorn Hill Industrial Park, which RIDC describes as 925 acres across Marshall and Cranberry townships with about 3 million square feet of industrial, flex and office space, is where the manufacturing is. Its tenants include electrical equipment and medical device makers.
Q Questions
What is Butler County's biggest freight stop?
Cranberry Township, at I-79 and the Turnpike.
Src Sources
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