Middletown mulls using Granite Run debris in park
Middletown Township Council Monday night will consider allowing fill material from the construction at the Promenade at Granite Run to be taken to a park under development to make way for trails and playing fields.
Middletown Township Council Chairman Mark Kirchgasser explained the governing body will be considering allowing BET Investments to move clean fill from the construction site off Route 1 to the Smedley facility off Rose Tree Road.
“We need this soil to properly level the playing fields that are being installed,” Kirchgasser said. “It’s a 71-acre parcel, which is intended by the purchase agreement that we have with the Smedley family to be passive recreation.”
The Promenade at Granite Run is a 820,000-square-foot retail and residential development that was approved in November 2015 to replace the Granite Run Mall after years of declining patronage at the one-time shopping mecca. Construction started about a year later and sites began being occupied and used at such sites as the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Primary Care. Overseeing the development is Horshambased BET Investments.
Much of the former facility was demolished except for two anchor stores, Boscov’s and Sears, to make way for a town center project including new shops like TJ Maxx, Marshalls and Panera Bread.
It will also contain a 50,000-square-foot, 192-unit apartment complex consisting of studio, 1- and 2-bedroom units, a club house, a fitness center, a luxury lounge and a pool deck. It will also have an Uber loading area and an Amazon staging zone. It is anticipated to begin leasing next February.
A corresponding five-story garage will be built for residents and Promenade shoppers.
The existing AMC theatre will be transformed into a Frank Theatres Cinebowl & Grill, an entertainment facility featuring a cinema with multiple screens and luxury seating, a boutique 10-pin alley and an arcade and restaurant. Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.based Frank Theatres began in Philadelphia and has expanded to 20 theatres with 220 screens up and down the East Coast. Among their future projects include a complex in Indiana.
The existing Boscov’s is also expected to get a $2-$3 million face lift.
On the township council’s agenda for their Monday meeting is an item in which the council will consider an agreement to relocate fill material from Promenade at Granite Run to the Smedley site.
Currently, stormwater basins are being installed at the parcel. A series of baseball, softball, soccer and lacrosse fields are planned for the upper section of the land, while wooded trails take up the majority of the parcel in the lower section.
According to Kirchgasser, this tract was an original land designated from William Penn and is some of the highest ground in the township. It was also a part of Penncrest Farm.
The councilman explained that the Granite Run soil is needed to level the athletic fields. He added that it is all clean fill, although he did not have the amount to be transferred to Smedley immediately available.
In addition, he said the township would be receiving financial compensation for the materials. Those figures were not available Saturday.
Kirchgasser said township officials hoped that the fields would begin planting next year with a full opening in 2020.
“I would expect we would be seeding the fields this time or a little bit later next year,” he said.
Kirchgasser said the council is trying to make certain they are preserving open space in a smart way that is beneficial to the community.
Some, like township resident William Evans, have reservations about the materials being moved to the Smedley parcel at Route 352 and Rose Tree Road.
“I need to remind you, as our community representatives,” Evans wrote in an e-mail to township council, “that the Smedley property was purchased and financed by us taxpayers to be a community park, not as a dump site so I have several questions.”
The meeting is at 7 p.m. at the township building at 27 N. Pennell Road in Middletown.