The Lehigh Valley was featured in an article by The Wall Street Journal, highlighting the region’s e-commerce boom.

The Lehigh Valley was featured in an article by The Wall Street Journal this week, highlighting the region’s e-commerce boom and the economic assets of the region that have made it possible.

The story, which ran in the Aug. 10 edition of the newspaper as well as its website, notes that the Lehigh Valley is perfectly placed for the e-commerce sector due to its proximity to major markets like New York and Philadelphia, as well as access to airfreight facilities at Lehigh Valley International Airport and logistics companies.

“As supply chains have become much more heavily focused on getting access to highest number of people in the shortest period of time, there’s been a big push to try and create an equivalent of the Inland Empire on the East Coast,” David Egan, CBRE’s head of industrial and logistics research for the Americas, said in the story. “The Lehigh Valley is really where it’s all sprung up.”

A survey conducted by the International Economic Development Council (IEDC) of where corporate executives and site selectors get their news found The Wall Street Journal was the overwhelming winner.

Sixty-five percent of those surveyed said they regularly read the publication, the highest by far of any news source, according to the IEDC. Local newspapers was a distant second with 30 percent, and The Wall Street Journal website was the third-highest in the survey, with 26 percent.

“The Wall Street Journal is a very respected source of business information and is well-read by the key players who are evaluating regions and making economic development and business expansion decisions,” said Don Cunningham, President and CEO of the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (LVEDC). “It’s nice to see the WSJ report on the Lehigh Valley’s preeminence in industrial and commercial development in recent years.”

Egan told The Wall Street Journal that the Interstate-78/Interstate-81 corridor, which includes the Lehigh Valley and parts of Central Pennsylvania, has grown 25 percent from Q2 2010 to Q2 2016, increasing from 224 million square-feet to 280 million square-feet.

That’s the most of any market in the nation, Egan said, and that 56 million square-foot increase exceeds double-digit percentage growth in Houston; Columbus, Ohio; and the Inland Empire area east of Los Angeles. The I-78/81 corridor does not include the Philadelphia metropolitan area.

Visit The Wall Street Journal website to read the full story, which ran under the headline “E-Commerce Forces Shift in Warehouse Building.”