Baker Tilly to put regional HQ in CityGate center in Lancaster

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The four-story center – being developed by East Hempfield Township real estate developer Oak Tree Development Group LLC – is expected to be up and running by December 2019, at which time Baker Tilly plans to occupy the space.


Baker Tilly will occupy roughly 30,000 square feet in the building’s top two levels. Some 200 employees will be based at the office, which is located at 1570 Fruitville Pike. It is across from the Shoppes at Belmont.

“We actually looked at where our people are living now, and this became a central location for the existing 200 individuals that occupy this area. Almost 75 percent of our people live within 25-30 miles of this location. So it was a great center point,” Capitano said.

The new space will replace Baker Tilly’s current Lancaster office. Leased at the Greenfield Corporate Center in East Lampeter Township, the small space has been used on an as-needed basis rather than as a regional headquarters.


Employees who work in Baker Tilly’s Harrisburg, Lehigh Valley, York and Wyomissing offices will be permanently assigned to Lancaster once the building is completed. The Chicago-based accounting firm notified them of the plans yesterday, David Capitano, Central Pennsylvania managing partner for Baker Tilly said.

Those offices will remain open, but without a full staff. They will be used on an as-needed basis for client meetings. 

“We are so pleased to welcome Baker Tilly to CityGate,” said Mike O’Brien, president of Oak Tree Development. “Baker Tilly adds significantly to the center’s exciting mix of commercial tenants.”

Baker Tilly is the only known tenant so far in the new building. Oak Tree signed another tenant for the first floor, O’Brien said. But he declined to identify the tenant.

“We were hoping to do that this morning, but they asked us to hold off,” O’Brien said.

The development project was funded in part by a combination of state loans and grants totaling $5 million. A large portion of the money was used to clean up contaminated soil, O’Brien said.

Plans to build the 60,000-square-foot, four-level office building on a former dump site began in February 2015, O’Brien said.

The shell of the building is slated to be finished this December.

A second building on the same location is also in the works.