Warehouse

The snow yesterday didn't deter Gov. Whitman from joining the ribbon- cutting ceremony at the Micro Warehouse in Gibbsboro. She just donned a pair of high black boots and was on her way. She arrived around noon, touring the facility and then making her way to a reception room, decorated with holiday poinsettias and a Christmas tree. There, she caused a stir of excitement among the array of officials awaiting her turn to speak. She began by praising the many officials who had worked to put together the $8.3 million deal that brought Micro Warehouse - and more jobs - to the region.

The New Eastern Food Co. Inc., the Tioga-based Chinese-restaurant supplier that was closed in January because of unsanitary conditions, has signed a consent decree permitting it to salvage some of the food items that were padlocked. The warehouse, at 1901-13 W. Westmoreland Street, was seized and padlocked Jan. 13 by federal officials who alleged that some food stored there had been contaminated by rodents and insects. Under the consent decree, New Eastern may proceed to "recondition" any "salvageable articles of food," according to a statement released yesterday by the U.S. attorney's office.

City firefighters battled a raging three-alarm fire at a warehouse at Second and Spruce Streets last night, and power was cut to nearby properties. Authorities said the fire was reported shortly after 9 p.m. and was declared under control at 10:28 p.m. The two-story brick warehouse was leveled by the fire, authorities said. No injuries were reported. City Fire Chief Kenneth Penn said the warehouse was owned by the Customill company, which apparently stored mostly plastics at the facility.

A warehouse that supplies some Chinese restaurants in Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware was seized and padlocked yesterday by federal officials who alleged that some food stored there had been contaminated by rodents and insects. The warehouse, at 1901-13 W. Westmoreland St. in the Tioga section of North Philadelphia, is operated by New Eastern Food Co. Inc., federal officials said. George Gershenfeld, an attorney for New Eastern, said in an interview yesterday that "there is no question that they (New Eastern representatives)

Angel Guadalupe, a coworker recalled, was the man who always said "good morning" to her before their shifts at the book warehouse in Bristol. His last known words, just before his violent death on the afternoon of Aug. 1, were to wish her "a nice weekend," Vanessa Gonzalez recalled. Seconds later, two shots rang out in the parking lot of the Simon & Schuster warehouse, Gonzalez testified yesterday at a preliminary hearing in Bristol. She saw a familiar man training a handgun on Guadalupe's white SUV, which had halted after backing onto Radcliffe Street.

The federal government announced yesterday that it had contracted with a Georgia firm to build a 1.049-million-square-foot equipment warehouse in Burlington County to be leased by the government for 20 years. The new Northeast Supply Distribution Facility will be built on 120 acres on River Road in Burlington Township near the bridge from the Pennsylvania Turnpike, according to John C. Thompson, executive assistant to the regional administrator of Philadelphia office of the General Services Administration (GSA)

You've heard of matching drapes and slipcovers. How about a matching, color-coordinated, 35,000-square-foot warehouse with stucco facing and yellow aluminum roofing and trim? That's what will be seen in the Upper Southampton Industrial Park, on the northern corner of County Line Road and James Way, if a plan presented to the township Planning Commission on Tuesday night receives final approval. It sure would beat the current mosquito-infested, empty plot covered with weeds and 6-foot-high dirt mounds, said builder Tom Kane.

It may not employ the largest number of people in Burlington Township, but the new General Services Administration warehouse will, in a way, be the biggest employer - with one million square feet. About 270 people will work at the plant when construction is completed, in about November 1990. The groundbreaking was Monday. The GSA warehouse will pay $500,000 in taxes annually, with about three- quarters of that going to the township, said Robert Ghaul, executive director of the Joint Burlington Economic Development Corp.

"I thought two trucks must have hit head-on," was the way Mary Fields, of the 700 block of Parker Street in Chester, described the shattering noise that jolted her out of bed Tuesday morning. Around the corner at 604 Seventh St., Alvin Daniels and his family of six didn't even stop to think of what they heard. Something crashed down on the rear of their twin home and sent them scurrying for safety. No one was hurt, although Fields' 1977 Dodge Aspen was totaled. The roof of a vacant two-story warehouse on the northwest corner of Seventh and Parker Streets caved in about 10:45 a.m. Tuesday, causing the rear walls on both sides to collapse outward and send a shower of bricks crashing onto the Daniels home and into Parker Street.

Groundbreaking is scheduled for next month on a 721,000-square-foot distribution warehouse for IKEA Wholesale Inc., part of the Swedish furniture chain that has chosen Westampton as the new hub of its East Coast operations. The project was embraced without issue by the Township Planning Board last week after three months of loose negotiations that were initiated by a private contractor familiar with the company after a deal to expand IKEA's Philadelphia facility went sour. According to company officials, IKEA needed 300,000 additional square feet of warehouse space.