Duck Creek Business Campus construction underway

April 1, 2025 1

SMYRNA – Hidden to the west of U.S. Route 1 and the east of Route 13 in Smyrna is an up-and-coming industrial park clocking in at more than 200 acres with room for more manufacturing and flex warehousing space than has ever been seen in the growing town.

KRM Development and JLL, the real estate firm handling the property, recently announced that Middletown-based Hydroponics to You LLC has opted to lease 49,000 square feet at the site. This is the third major leasing agreement signed at the new industrial park.

In total, 25 different lots were available on the site and up to 1.5 million square feet. Smyrna Director of Planning Jeremy Rothwell said some of those lots were combined over time to allow for the construction of the four larger buildings planned for the site.

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Two lots were combined for the construction of a 133,000-square-foot building and another two lots for a 97,000-square-foot building, for example. Two 70,000-square-foot buildings required the consolidation of three lots each. Other buildings may be possible as the town and developers move forward with plans for the business park, Rothwell said.

Rothwell said new developments like the growth at Duck Creek Business Campus is exciting for towns like Smyrna with hopes of “. . .providing jobs and an expanded tax base – two very important things to the town.”

But warehousing needs have made employment opportunities scarce so far at the location.

While KRM Development Corporation touts a potential of more than 4,000 jobs from within the soon-to-be walls of the Duck Creek Business Campus, Rothwell told the Delaware Business Times that, so far, that has yet to be realized as a large portion of construction at the site continues.

To date, several tenants have been identified for the various spaces that are currently available, including Hydroponics to You LLC, as well as electrical, communications and utility products manufacturer Wesco International which leases 67,000 square feet on the property and utilizes another three acres for outdoor storage, according to Rothwell.

According to Rothwell, Procter & Gamble also landed a significant amount of space at Duck Creek Business Campus as another warehousing location.

“Procter & Gamble, for example, has about five employees in those 70,000 square feet because it’s a secondary location for them. They needed more space,” Rothwell said. “It’s not hundreds of employees like we originally thought. It’s a guessing game because you don’t know who might be moving in.”

The town would still benefit from the business use at the park, however, as each building would still pay property taxes to the town which would, in turn, support local schools, emergency services and other needs.

As KRM continues the expansion of the Duck Creek Business Campus, Rothwell said the next phase is underway right now as they work to construct roads and utilities on another third of the site before more construction can begin.

“The larger businesses are looking for a certain type of product and surrounding demographics when they choose a location they’re going to be in on a long-term basis,” JLL Executive Vice President Jamie Vari told DBT. “The majority of industrial space that is concentrated around the I-95 corridor, it’s mostly occupied whether it is Class A or B space. . . The more south you go, there’s a drastic drop off of in just availability.”

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Working with KRM and the town of Smyrna to successfully launch the Duck Creek Business Campus is just one way he hopes to solve that puzzle as businesses start to move south for available space.

“Concentrated around the I-95 corridor, there’s a fundamental lack of land in that vicinity to build something that can accommodate even 70 to 150,000 foot buildings. So it’s a lot of musical chairs in that environment up there when you talk about industrial space,” he said.

JLL is also working with KRM Development as they forge on building two 70,000-square-foot flex warehouses on the Western Sussex Business Campus site in Seaford. One of those buildings is currently under construction while construction on the second building will begin later this year, according to Vari.