HISTORY

The mine facility at Wampum has been more than 125 years in the making. Here are some of the key historical events of the facility that led to the formation of Gateway Commerce Center:

1870-1946 – Crescent Stone Company mined limestone for its cement manufacturing from caves in Wampum.

1950’s – The U.S. Air Force created an ultimately unfulfilled engineering study to create a bomb-proof storage depot at the site. The mines lay dormant for decades.

1963 – Page Avjet, an aviation service company, and Medusa Cement Company jointly owned and developed the mines into The Wampum Mine Storage Company. The first tenant was the General Services Administration, who stored medical supplies and equipment for Civil Defense hospitals in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

1964 – Medusa Cement Company opened a new technical center at the current site of the real estate offices. A pedestrian entrance and facade were completed for the project.

1965 – American Optical Company laid plans for a 2,000-square-foot optical lab, including a shaft to the surface for measurement purposes.

1967 – Plans are developed for Underground USA, which called for motels, restaurants, entertainment, and shopping facilities located in the underground, only to be deferred after a marketing study.

1980 – Page Avjet becomes the sole owner of the facility, which is reformed as the Wampum Industrial Facility. Space is diversified into various functions: from a storage facility for equipment, metal alloys, vehicles, and food products to a secure records storage facility with humidity and temperature controlled vaults for vital records, microfilm and computer tapes. Films feature heavily in this transition, both as storage space for classics (including the Star Wars Trilogy) and as a filming location for movies such as the 1985 cult classic Day of the Dead by George Romero.

1993 – A second optical lab and shaft was constructed by Contraves in preparation to polish the world’s largest one-piece telescope lens, which is eventually shipped to the Subaru observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

1994 – The facility was purchased by Gateway Commerce Center Limited Partnership. A new portal and roadway were constructed in 1995, interior truck docks and building additions totaling over 60,000 square feet were made between 1996 and 1998.

1999 – Gateway Commerce Center completed a 100,000 square-foot building expansion to the subsurface facility – the first major building project at the facility since the original construction in 1963.

2005 – The facility was purchased by Bruce-Wish Management and an extensive expansion and facility improvement plan is undertaken. Several additions were made: a 125,000 square-foot storage build; a 110,000 square-foot climate-controlled vehicle warehouse; a 90,000 cubic-foot records vault; and a 50,000 square foot private record center.

2008 – A lease is initiated for a 2,500 sq. ft. private record storage area and the construction of over 1,500 square feet of new premium private vaults. This expansion brings the total amount of space developed to over 850,000 square feet of the facility’s total 2.5 million square foot subsurface potential.

Today – Gateway Commerce Center can claim more than 1.1 million square feet of occupied tenant buildings, warehouse, record centers and office space. Our hands-on ownership, management team and facility staff of 13 boast a combined 220 years of subsurface development, logistics expertise, and records management experience provide continuous expertise to the Company’s four operating divisions, Real Estate, Logistics, Records Management, and Seasonal Recreational Vehicle Storage. Each of our operating units utilize state-of-the-art computer management systems to track stored items and perform billing functions in a seemingly ageless and impermeable environment.