Category: Development

Ardmore Greenlighted To Become Philly West

This article from Montco Tea Party activist Bob Guzzardi is just one more example of how the self-appointed smarter-than-thou set seeks to turn everyone else into Happy Hamsters.

By Bob Guzzardi


The Federal Transit Authority has greenlighted the Ardmore Transit Center project, which will put a mixed-used high-density development in the heart of the neighborhood’s business district.

How can this project NOT have a significant impact on surrounding area. Isn’t that the point? To revitalize Ardmore with a major and dramatic project.

Some of us like Ardmore uncongested with traffic and nonurban. What is the point of converting Ardmore or Bala Cynwyd or Lower Merion into Philadelphia West? If someone wanted urban, he or she would live in Philadelphia which is high density urban, not low density suburban which is why many moved here.
If this were a good idea, private investors would invest as saver-investors are doing at the Palmer Theological Seminary project.

If someone wanted urban, he or she would live in Philadelphia which is high density urban, not low density suburban which is why many moved here.

Ardmore Greenlighted

Ardmore Greenlighted To Become Philly West

Development Trend For Peasantization

There is set of people that has the strange desire for order in the lives of other people and that, that they have been somehow ordained to be the means to do so. Development Trend For Peasantization

One of their latest conceits is the transit-oriented development which is basically putting in a high density development of homes, apartments and offices around a 19th century commuter rail station in the middle of a successful suburb.

Peasant homes for peasants you could call it.

If done properly, the developer will be able to sip a Chablis before the gas-fire in the fireplace of his McMansion’s living room as he watches through arched windows the deer play in the snow of his two-acre backyard and think warm thoughts about his “little people” scurrying about like happy hamsters in his new community, and feel as though he has just saved the world.

An attempt is being made to put one of these in Middletown Township, Delaware County, Pa. on the old Franklin Mint property with the proposed Wawa Station on SEPTA’s Media-Elwyn rail line as the transit hub.

It would have 1,200 residences including “luxury” apartments; 798,000 square feet of office space, and 235,000 square feet of retail space.

And in Montgomery County, Abington Township has signed on to a  transit-oriented development centered on SEPTA’s Noble Station on the West Trenton Line which will allow for increasing the residential unit density from eight per acre to 300 on an 8-acre tract next to the Baederwood Shopping Mall.

Someone is going to point out that starter homes and apartments are needed, and they would be right. But rather than break things that are fixed — like low-density, affluent suburban townships — how about we try to fix things that are broken.

Like, well, Philadelphia.

In 1950, Philly had a population of 2.07 million ; a population density of 16,286 per square mile. Today, it has a population of 1.55 million and a population density of 11,457 per square mile.

Clearly, it can fit more people.

And  historic North Philadelphia Station and the Broad Street Subway line would make great hubs for transit-oriented developments.

Now, some will point out that nobody who loves their children would willingly subject them to the city’s public school system. True!

But  school vouchers would easily solve that.

Other cynics might say that these are very high crime areas. Also true! But if you really had confidence in your ability to order the lives of others you would have the faith that responsible homeowners in self-contained communities would push out the “no-snitch” crowd.

And if not, well, maybe you shouldn’t try to break things that are fixed.

Development Trend For Peasantization

Why Traffic Jams Are Worse In Pa. Than They Have To Be

The Berwind Property Group plan for a development bordering state routes 252 and 3 in Newtown Township, Pa. remains on the drawing board with the new hurdle that those concerned about congestion at the intersection now run the township.

The township settled with BPG two years ago to develop the 219 acre site that was once part of the campus of the Charles E. Ellis School For Girls but a lawsuit by rival developer Claude de Botton stopped the project cold.

BPG has filed a right-to-know request hoping to find incriminating emails showing that members of the present board of supervisors had communication they should not have had regarding de Botton and BPG’s project.

De Botton is developing  a  town center a few miles to west similar to that proposed by BPG.

I’ve met de Botton and I have a lot of respect for him as a man and as a developer, and I’m sure BPG is a responsible developer as well although their people skills can use some improving.

While one can never be certain as to what another’s primary motivation is, the anti-congestion faction that runs Newtown certainly has a legitimate issue. The roads of Newtown– more often than not referred to as Newtown Square which is the post office address for most residents of the township — become almost a parking lot during the rush hours. This affects a rather large part of the Philadelphia metropolitan area since Route 3, aka West Chester Pike, is a feeder road for the Blue Route and Route 252 is one for routes 1 and 30.

The tragedy here is the remarkable shortsightedness shown by officials at the municipal and state level to make traffic flow a priority over commercial matters while there was a lot of open space and before anybody put any development plans on the table. The same can be said about the development of Route 322 and Baltimore Pike in Concord.

It’s still  not to late in Newtown for the state to step and make traffic a priority. The stores have not been erected and the parking lots have not been paved.

BPG’s tract is northwest of the intersection but it doesn’t include the actual northwest corner. That belongs to de Botton. For a bit of irony if the powers-that-be demand a widening of the intersection or an underpass, he would be the one more affected.