L. Michael Ross remembers when 300,000 square feet was big for a distribution center along Interstate 81 in Franklin County, Pa.
“Now everything is a million-plus,” said Ross, who took the helm of the then-new Franklin County Area Development Corp. in 1986. The organization has been involved in more than $1.8 billion in new investment in the county, much of it spurred by distribution pathways that rely on I-81.
Today’s growth is fulfilling the vision of futurists from the 1960s, Ross said. At that time, people were predicting a megalopolis would one day extend from Washington up the Eastern Seaboard to Boston. […]