PAVING PARADISE?
NEW PROPOSAL FOR DON GUANELLA TRACT IN MARPLE RAISES IRE; MEETING MONDAY
An aerial view of the woods on the Don Guanella tract in Marple Township. Residents once again are rallying to oppose a new plan to develop the site.
MARPLE » It’s shaping up to be another fight over what to do with more than 200 acres of land along Sproul and Reed roads that may be redeveloped, a portion including the former Don Guanella Village site.
After a failed attempt by Goodman Properties in 2016 to get township approval to convert the 213acre site into a mixed-use development with retail, residential, office and recreational spaces, another developer is making a shot to use of the land. But it’s quite scaled back from Goodman’s proposal.
West Conshohockenbased Carlino Commercial Development is looking to acquire the 38-acre footprint of Don Guanella, and an additional nine acres on top of that, for retail and recreational use which includes a Wegmans supermarket. This plan would preserve 166 acres of the open green space for passive and active recreation. Sproul Road Development LLC would be the owner and developer of the 47 developed acres with the potential for the remainder to be sold to, perhaps, the county or the township for preservation according to Bruce McElwee, president of the Valley Forge Force Investment Corporation.
“Our ultimate goal is to build an institutionalquality, world-class asset, mixed-use development that will be a timeless asset for the community,” said Peter Miller, principal of Carlino Commercial Development.
Miller and his team of consultants will be making their first presentation to the public on at 6 p.m. Monday at Cardinal O’Hara High School to show specifics on what their plans are for the property following the purchase of the land at an undisclosed price from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
From 47 acres of land Miller is proposing 380,000 square feet of retail space including the aforementioned Wegmans and a fitness center, a four-story self-storage facility and a four-story senior living center. Two of those acres will be appropriate to public parking for soccer and lacrosse fields and access to the trail head leading into the vast open green space that will remain. The recreation fields will take up five of the 166 acres of open space.
“We want to create a public park and active recreation because we think that’s part of the overall redevelopment,” said Miller. “We think it’s a really unique opportunity to permanently preserve and protect the green space while also cleaning it up.”
Of the open space, Miller said he would manage and keep clean the space and its miles of trails.
Miller’s proposed plan is a lot smaller than what Goodman tried to do. He would have developed almost the whole 213 acres as Cardinal Crossing Town Center with a Wegmans, movie theater, an office building for Main Line Health, townhouses and other mixed-use facilities. The township rejected Goodman’s proposal and the archdiocese pulled out of the agreement of sale in early June 2016.
But even with about three-quarters of the green space staying intact on the land, it isn’t sounding any better to one local community group.
“A smaller development would help with the taxes, but it’s a bad trade off: You get tax revenue but sacrifice people’s quality of life,” said Save Marple Greenspace Communications Director Ken Hemphill. “I’m sure that will be the argument made Monday night. We can get tax revenue from a nuclear facility too, but it’s not better than 47 acres of commercial development.”
Because the land has been held by the archdiocese it did not have to pay real estate taxes on a property assessed at $41.4 million according to online county records.
Hemphill and Save Marple Greenspace were a driving force that mobilized the Marple and surrounding
“We want to create a public park and active recreation because we think that’s part of the overall redevelopment. We think it’s a really unique opportunity to permanently preserve and protect the green space while also cleaning it up.”
— Peter Miller, principal of Carlino Commercial Development
communities to oppose the Cardinal Crossing proposal.
“We’ve gotten much more influential in the community,” said Hemphill about the group’s efforts to promote green space.
Miller knew about the group when he started to mull over proposals for the land and reached out to it to work on its prospective ideas.
“What we learned was they were an effective group, they mobilized the Marple population,” said Miller. “We learned that maintaining the green space was important and that we tried to, and we did it, for quite a long time to work out an arrangement where they actually supported the redevelopment project. “
In a December 2017 newsletter by Save Marple Greenspace about a thenproposed 41-acre plan by Miller was called a “oncein-a-lifetime conservation opportunity for Delaware County” due to it saving 170 areas of green space and with a creative financing plan to keep it open.
Then, as Miller and Hemphill both admitted, communication between the sides ceased.
“They lied to us. They promised us that it would be a smaller development,” said Hemphill after realizing it was increased to 47 acres. “They dramatically changed what they said they were going to do. So we stopped having any contact with them.
Bruce McElwee, who is also part of Sproul Road Development LLC, said there’s been a degree of overreaction by some Save Marple Greenspace members over five acres of the 166 proposed for recreation fields.
“The idea that five acres gets killed off for active reaction to help everyone feel like there’s a benefit in this endeavor for them is important,” he said.
Miller added that this is the need for active and passive recreation areas as part of the township’s comprehensive plan and as part of building a community for the constituents.
“It’s a really great addition,” he said.
“They’re not saving the forest, they might say that they want to save 166 acres, they’re not saving anything,” rebutted Hemphill. “They said they would build something much smaller, given that they’ve changed the plans already, I have to believe they’re going to change again.”
Because nothing official has been presented at this time, McElwee said what was presented to Save Marple Greenspace in December was only preliminary and, “not particularly inspired by what we have right now” while still calling it very conceptual.
Hemphill said he wants development to be restricted to the original 38-acre site of the former Don Guanella Village.
“Carlino should build something a lot smaller, nothing is forcing them to build something this big,” he said. “If you want community support, propose something we want.”
An open house on Carlino Commercial Development plans will be hosted at Cardinal O’Hara High School on May 21 at 6 p.m.
“They’re not saving the forest, they might say that they want to save 166 acres, they’re not saving anything. They said they would build something much smaller, given that they’ve changed the plans already, I have to believe they’re going to change again.”
— Save Marple Greenspace Communications Director Ken Hemphill