The Lead: Paradise Lost?
Monroe UnfilteredSeveral folks, including yours truly, have driven down Paradise Trail between Mill Creek Rd. and Brushy Mountains and were surprised to see the trees and brush cleared out, stumps and brush piles dotting newly cleared ground.
The site sits right next door to Hayward Laboratories, the Palmer's hair and skin care manufacturer that's operated out of 1921 Paradise Trail for years, filling, packaging, and distributing the brand's creams, gels, and tubes. The clearing lines up with Hayward's own plans. Hayward Business Park LLC won conditional use approval from Stroud Township's Board of Supervisors in March 2025 to build a 200,000 square foot warehouse in two phases on the parcel. This spring, they returned to the township's Zoning Hearing Board (case #26-02) for a variance nudging ground coverage from 60% to about 62%, plus relief on buffer and landscaping rules, to fit in a pedestrian walkway along Route 447.
Shoutout to two readers on this one: Frank S., who first asked us what was going on out there, and Amy S., who called the Hayward Labs connection before we'd confirmed it ourselves.
While we're on this stretch of road, it's worth knowing that Hayward isn't the only project planned along Paradise Trail. Stroud Township has spent years lining up funding to fix chronic stormwater flooding at Route 447 and Brushy Mountain Road, an intersection that I can personally attest has flooded for years.
State Rep. Maureen Madden announced in October 2024 that the Commonwealth Financing Authority approved a $500,000 grant for the project, adding to a $938,609 grant and a $250,000 PennDOT multimodal grant already secured in 2022, putting roughly $1.69 million in state money toward the $3.05 million job. The plan calls for bigger box culverts to fix the flooding, a wider swale buffer, a relocated utility pole and power line, and a new traffic signal at the intersection. No sign of that moving forward but we will let you know if we hear or see anything.
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