Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Coatesville Gateway project ready to go
Slowed by environmental problems at a dry cleaners building, Jim DePetris says project is ready to go
Jim DePetris sees the revitalization of the city much like a football game.
After a few false starts, the team “is moving the ball downfield,” DePetris said last week in updating the project he’s been working on for around two years. “We can see the goal line.”
DePetris said his companies, DEPG and Legend Properties, have made headway on several fronts on the project, known as Coatesville Gateway, and are now confident on-site work will begin in July.
“Definite,” DePetris replied when asked how sure he is work will begin in the summer.
The project was held up by environmental problems at a dry cleaners building slated for demolition and redevelopment. Those issues have been resolved, and demolition and construction work can now start, DePetris said.
The project is centered at First Avenue and East Lincoln Highway, an intersection often referred to as the gateway of Coatesville.
It calls for a group of one-story stores at the intersection to be demolished and replaced with a mix of more appealing retail and professional space. All of the buildings on the north side of Lincoln Highway from First Avenue up to but not including the Coatesville Cultural Society building will be demolished and new retail and office space will be constructed. An original plan for residential units has been replaced by office space, DePetris said.
There are a number of major new developments for the project, according to DePetris and Jack Corcoran, leasing agent for Legend, including:
• The developer has an agreement of sale to buy the Coatesville Cultural Society building in the 100 block of East Lincoln Highway and a commitment from a sports bar based in central Pennsylvania with multiple locations to open there. The 6,000-square-foot sports bar will take up the first floor of the building while the Cultural Society will continue to operate on the upper floors, DePetris said.
• An Italian restaurant that now has a location in West Chester has agreed to move into an historic former bank building on the southeast corner of Lincoln Highway at First Avenue. The bank, which was last a First Niagara, was built in 1857, and has two large vaults that the restaurateur plans to use either as private dining rooms or for wine storage, DePetris said.
• The project also has a com-
mitment from a day care center to open there when it’s ready for occupancy.
• The project has received $3 million in Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program, or RACP, funding from the state.
• Chester County has
committed $1 million for a public garage. The location for that has not been determined yet, the developer said.
Separately, the city has received funding to fix the intersection of East Lincoln Highway and First Avenue. It currently is misaligned; when work is done traffic on First Avenue will be able to travel straight across East Lincoln
Highway instead of the current slight zigzag.
Also in the area, Diamond Street, which currently is an alley, will be converted to a street with the creation of pedestrian sidewalks.
The plan has the support of Coatesville’s government, City Manager Michael Trio said last week.
“We want to see it be a
success,” said Trio, who has a background in development, having worked for King of Prussia-based O’Neill Properties as senior vice president and director of land planning. He also owned two planning consulting firms: Trio Associates and T3 Advisors.
The city is doing its best to become attractive to developers, Trio said. It recently received funding for train station improvements, which include sidewalk improvements on Third and Fourth avenues from Lincoln Highway to Fleetwood Street. That work will happen in the next 12 to 16 months, he said.
In addition it is trying to become a LERTA, or Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance, community. LERTA was established to allow local taxing authorities to exempt improvements to a business property from taxes in areas in need of redevelopment.
Developers, he said, “can come in here and buy low ... without worrying about high land costs — that’s huge.”
“We’re trying to make the city a green tape city instead of a red tape city,” Trio added.
DePetris said he is aware of the impatience and in some cases skepticism area residents have when it comes to the subject of revitalization in Coatesville. Many recall the decades-long legal dispute created when the city proposed building a golf course using eminent domain.
Other proposals have come and gone, and DePetris admits to being stymied with Coatesville Gateway by the dry cleaning environmental situation.
“We were held up two years,” he said. “There’s nothing worse than a dirty dry cleaners.”
But the veteran developer, who said he has $1 million invested in the project so far, drew on some of his experiences to express optimism for his Coatesville plan.
West Chester’s downtown was struggling in the early 1990s until he recruited Iron Hill to take space in a former Woolworth’s building at High and Gay streets where it is still located, he said.
DePetris also worked to bring Iron Hill to Phoenixville, part of the revitalization of that borough’s downtown. He also points to the Northern Liberties section of Philadelphia as an example of how areas can turn around their fortunes.
The plan in Coatesville, he said, is to start demolition in July, to break ground on the new buildings in November and to have the new buildings up 12 months after that.
“We want to make a statement” with the project, DePetris said. “At one time, Coatesville was the center of shopping for the surrounding area. You look at Phoenixville, at West Chester, at Northern Liberties — that’s what we envision.”