Souderton / Telford : Development News

Like the Pike: Lower Gwynedd launches campaign to attract attention to Bethlehem Pike

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

It’s a sleepy stretch of Bethlehem Pike that winds through Spring House, a small Montgomery County suburb between Ambler and Montgomeryville. A great deal of through traffic forsakes Bethlehem Pike to use the far faster Route 309 bypass, while too few people who do drive the Pike get out of their vehicles. With this in mind, Lower Gwynedd Township has embarked on a new campaign called “I like the Pike” to draw attention to Bethlehem Pike’s potential for redevelopment and build a sense of community among existing businesses.

One goal of “I like the Pike” is to highlight the recent streetscape improvements that are designed to make the Bethlehem Pike-corridor more walkable and green. So far, sidewalks and enhanced lighting have been installed on roughly half of the corridor, as part of a $1.5 million project, says Kathleen Hunsicker, the chairwoman of the Lower Gwynedd Board of Supervisors. Also, “walking paths have been built to connect adjacent residential neighborhoods to the Pike so residents can walk to eat and shop,” says Hunsicker.

Lower Gwynedd is also looking to make the community more sustainable by expanding Veterans Memorial Park, which can be found at the intersection of Bethlehem and Penllyn Pikes. As of now, a stone wall has been constructed that will include a sign welcoming drivers to Lower Gwynedd. Hunsicker adds that benches, a water fountain, flagpoles, and a rain garden will make the park a much more appealing place for those strolling along the Pike. It is expected to be completed by autumn of this year.

While walkability and parkland are important components to improving the corridor, attracting businesses is paramount. The Supervisors are most hopeful that restaurants and service businesses will be interested in moving into Spring House. As it always does, zoning plays an enormous role in the ability to lure commercial facilities. “The Township understands that developers might need some flexibility with zoning to brings projects to life,” says Hunsicker. In support of this idea, an ordinance is currently in front of the township planning commission that would provide some leeway in zoning.

“I like the Pike” also seeks to retain existing businesses that dot Bethlehem Pike, and create a semblance of community among them. Hunsicker says she hopes that a Lower Gwynedd Business Association will be formed as a result of the campaign. The campaign also looks to impel locals and visitors to frequent the businesses, such as Spring House Tavern, The Flower Shop of Spring House, and Born to Run shoes, along the corridor through the website. In other words, the campaign is intended to create “a buzz in the community” that lets everyone know “we are open for business,” Hunsicker says.

Source: Kathleen Hunsicker, Lower Gwynedd Twp. Supervisors
Writer: Andy Sharpe

Not much snow, but a revived historic lodge at Montco's Spring Mountain

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

A half-century ago, Schwenksville was considered a destinations for vacationers from the Delaware Valley, along with the Jersey Shore and Poconos, thanks to Spring Mountain skiing and the Perkiomen Creek. Quite a bit has changed since then, as Schwenksville isn't exactly a household name any longer. However, Rick and Gayle Buckman, co-owners of Schwenksville's Spring Mountain ski resort, are hoping to revive the area's appeal to visitors. To do this, they recently renovated and re-opened the historic Woodside Lodge, formerly known as the Woodside Inn and Woodside Manor.

The Woodside Lodge began accepting visitors again at the end of January. According to Gayle Buckman, the inn features mostly two-room suites with fireplaces. The Buckmans are clearly proud of their lodge's legacy, which dates to 1923. In the midst of the $1.5 million renovation, "we were able to uncover some of the historical elements,” says Gayle Buckman. This includes the building's porches, which, with the exception of one, were opened up like they were decades ago. Buckman is also proud that she was able to preserve the inn's original staircase, although it had to be enclosed due to the fire code.

Spring Mountain was also able to maintain most of the wooden floors on the first level of the lodge. The Buckmans added transoms, which are wooden crosspieces separating doors from windows above them, to add to the historic mystique of the lodge. After all, transoms were prevalent before air conditioning was commonly used because they facilitated cross ventilation. For those of you visiting Spring Mountain during the summer, there's no need to fret, as the lodge is air-conditioned.

The Buckmans believe the re-opening of Woodside means great things are in store for Spring Mountain. The lodge makes the mountain "a destination,” points out Gayle Buckman. During the winter (assuming it's cold enough), visitors can enjoy a day crammed with skiing and a night relaxing at the Woodside. During the summer, tourists can take advantage of the mountain's one-of-a-kind zip-line canopy, which Buckman says attracts people from across the country, and retire to the inn. The inn is also convenient to the Perkiomen Trail, which is popular among bicyclists.

The lodge also features the Buckman Tavern, whose chef Michael Kenney has experience as Will Smith's personal chef and as a cook at the Four Seasons Hotel. Currently, the tavern is open for dinner, and serves American comfort food. Entree prices range from $15 to $26. Along with entrees, the tavern serves soup, salads, "starters,” and sandwiches. It is generally open between 4:30 and 9 p.m., with later hours on Thursdays and weekends. Kenney also prepares breakfast for overnight guests.

Woodside's re-opening open house in late January proved to be a big hit. Gayle Buckman says between 800 and 1,000 people showed up to christen the historic lodge. Among them were the grandson of the original architect and the co-owner of the Woodside in the 1940s, the latter of which is now in her late 90s. Needless to say, there were plenty of pictures of the inn and manor from when Schwenksville enjoyed its heyday. With the lodge re-opened, the Buckmans hope for similar pictures in the future.

Writer: Andy Sharpe
Sources: Gayle and Rick Buckman

Art expansion: Bucks County's Mercer Museum opens a multi-million dollar wing

Flying Kite Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Located in Bucks County's Doylestown for nearly a century now, the Mercer Museum is so highly regarded as a cultural and historic institution that it was registered as a National Historic Landmark in 1985. For decades, schoolchildren, amateur anthropologists and tourists from throughout the Philadelphia area and beyond have studied the many thousands of handmade tools and cultural artifacts on display there--all of them objects that were created prior to the Industrial Revolution.

But because the museum has literally run out of space, and has no room for traveling exhibits, the Mercer has seemingly always had the unfortunate reputation of being the sort of place visitors experience only once in a lifetime.

"A lot of people would say, 'Oh, I visited you in fourth grade, and I haven't been back since,'" says Gayle Shupack, a museum spokesperson. "So we really needed to give people a reason to come back again and again, to visit us," she adds.

That reason, it turns out, is a new $12.5 million, 13,000-square-foot wing that is being unveiled to the museum-going public on June 18. And although a series of traveling exhibitions have already been booked to appear in the new addition, the wing's inaugural show will actually be a rare exhibit featuring items from the Mercer's own 40,000-piece collection. Some of them have never before been publicly shown.

The new wing is also a green-friendly space. Recycled blue jeans were used as insulation, for instance, and the restrooms feature water-conserving fixtures. "It was our chance to come up to the 21st century," Shupack says.

A 1,000-square-foot education space known as the Learning Center will also be located in the new wing, and the changing exhibition gallery clocks in at 3,500 square feet. During the wing's opening day, the first 100 visitors to the museum, says Shupack, will be admitted free-of-charge.

Source: Gayle Shupack, Mercer Museum
Writer: Dan Eldridge

Do you know of a new building going up, a business expanding or being renovated, a park in the works or even a cool new house being built in the neighborhood? Please send your Development News tips here.

SEPTA receives $6.4M in federal grants to develop transit asset management system

Flying Kite Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey announced last Tuesday that Pennsylvania would receive $47 million in federal transit and infrastructure grants as part of the Federal Transit Administration's State of Good Repair program. As SEPTA updated its hybrid bus fleet two years ago, the lion's share of the funding went to Pittsburgh's Allegheny County Port Authority for a clean diesel fleet of their own. But SEPTA didn't come away empty handed, receiving $8.1 million for two infrastructure improvements a long time coming.

The first grant will revamp SEPTA's Parkside Bus Loop, helping reconnect this West Philly neighborhood. But the second, more universal improvement will aid in future upgrades. Using $6.4 million, SEPTA will install an asset management system to aid in record-keeping as many of Philadelphia's transit assets come up for repairs.

"A lot of our infrastructure dates back to the early 1900's and were taken over from other private companies," says SEPTA CFO Richard Burnfield. "What the FTA was trying to focus on is knowing what you have out there in the field before you can make an assessment as to what your overall needs are, coming up with a plan for when things should be replaced."

The system will help SEPTA keep better records so when funding is available, the authority can make a more organized, more compelling case for further federal dollars as the fleet is upgraded.

"Right now, we do a very good job of managing our assets so while the records are not as computerized as we'd like them to be, we have so much knowledge within our engineering staff that I feel we make excellent decisions," says Burnfield. "But I think this will help us going forward so we can do a second check on things as our staff reaches retirement."

Source: Richard Burnfield, SEPTA
Writer: John Steele

Amtrak stops at 30th Street Station to announce high-speed rail plan

Flying Kite Tuesday, October 05, 2010

In science fiction novels and books about the future, a few technologies are boilerplate: flying cars, meals in pill form and the ability to teleport instantly from place to place. National commuter rail company Amtrak took another step toward teleportation on Tuesday with its announcement of a high-speed rail vision plan. In Tuesday's news conference from University City's 30th Street Station, with Governor Ed Rendell on hand, Amtrak officials laid out their goal to create a line with average speeds well over 130 mph, saving passengers between one and two hours on average.

"Amtrak is putting forward a bold vision of a realistic and attainable future that can revolutionize transportation, travel patterns and economic development in the Northeast for generations," says Amtrak President and CEO Joseph Boardman.

The plan, entitled A Vision for High-Speed Rail in the Northeast Corridor, proposes a full build-out to be completed by 2040. Its construction, Amtrak says, would create more than 40,000 full-time jobs annually over a 25-year period, building new track, tunnels, bridges, stations, and other infrastructure. Predictably, the cost for such a project is high, $4.7 billion annually over 25 years. But Amtrak's feasibility studies peg the Northeast as a "mega-region" capable of drawing the type of rail traffic to make such an investment profitable. And with some premier legislative voices like New Jersey's Frank Lautenberg and Massachusetts' John Kerry already voicing their support, we may be teleporting out of 30th Street Station sooner than we think.

"Amtrak's High Speed Rail plan will create jobs, cut pollution and help us move towards a modern and reliable transportation system network in the Northeast," said Kerry in a recent statement. "As countries around the world continue to build out their transportation systems, we
cannot afford to fall further behind. This is an important down payment on the massive commitment necessary to bridge our infrastructure gap."

Source: Joseph Boardman, Amtrak
Writer: John Steele