POTTSTOWN, PA-West Chester-based Communications Test Design Inc. leased 96,000 sf at the 700,000-sf Gateway Center here. The site is owned by BCW Associates.

Terms of the lease and its aggregate value are undisclosed. On condition of anonymity, a person familiar with the deal tells GlobeSt.com, "the mid-range average asking rental rate at the complex is $3 per sf."

CTDI is a global supplier of installation, engineering and maintenance services to the telecommunications industry. It operates 30 locations worldwide. In this move, the firm required a large block of high-ceiling space for warehousing and distribution and wanted the facility to be within a 30-minute drive of its headquarters. While the new facility meets its space requirements it adds another 10 minutes to the drive.

John Morrissey, a principal at King of Prussia-based Jackson Cross Partners, represented CTDI. The search, he says, "illustrates the difficulty of finding 30-ft-clear warehouse space in Philadelphia's western suburbs. We had to extend the search out to Pottstown to find a large block of available space that met the customer's requirements. "The high cost of ground in the 'close-in' suburban market has made it virtually impossible to develop large distribution facilities," Morrissey explains. That is one of the factors that has driven warehouse development to Morgantown, which is about 98 miles from West Chester, and as far out as Carlisle along the Pennsylvania Turnpike and to the Lehigh Valley, according to Morrissey.