College Township officials have begun reviewing a tentative plan for a development that would create a community of hundreds of residential units in the Dale Summit area.
Burkentine Real Estate Group’s Crew814 proposes a planned residential development (PRD) on 48 acres on the west side of Shiloh Road and north of Trout Road. The property is located behind the Pleasant Pointe apartment complex.
The development would include 64 townhomes for sale, 55 townhomes for rent and 504 apartment units across nine buildings constructed in multiple phases, according to the tentative plan submitted on Oct. 21 and reviewed by the township planning commission at two meetings in November.
Plans also include a 10,000-square-foot community center with a pool, pickleball and tennis courts and a playground, along with community gathering spaces equipped with benches, grills and other amenities, walking trails and a centralized dog park. The development will feature 20 acres of dedicated open space, including 7.3 acres of active recreation areas.
A total of 1,385 parking spaces are proposed across the entire residential development. Most of the parking lots will be located behind buildings.
A 6.4-acre lot with in the development area is also designated for commercial use to be determined.
Phase one at the south end of the development would include construction of the townhomes, an apartment complex with two four-story buildings and the community center, Ronald Borger, of project engineer PennTerra, told the planning commission.
Access to the development would be from an extension of Pleasant Pointe Drive and a street intersecting with Shiloh Road. In the first phase, a low-volume driveway would be constructed connecting to Shiloh Road, but will including grading for a wider road at full build-out. A traffic scoping study for Shiloh Road is currently underway.
About 75% of the roadways for the development would be constructed in phase one, with the driveway and Pleasant Pointe extensions ending in temporary cul-de-sacs, Borger said.
CATA is expected to service the area with a bus stop likely located at the community center, Borger added.
Two large stormwater basins and other site infrastructure would also be completed during phase one.
Phase two would be split into several sub-phases for construction of the commercial area and seven more apartment buildings, with full buildout of the PRD, depending on market conditions, expected to be completed in 2036.
The proposed development is located with the township’s Planned Research and Business Park zoning, where residential is permitted as a conditional use. The conditional use allows planning commission and council to recommend reasonable conditions for approval.
PRDs, meanwhile, are “an option for developers who wish to build in College Township, but have a vision for something different, which may not be specifically permitted in the base zoning district,” Lindsay Schoch, township principal planner, wrote in a memo to the planning commission in June, when Burkentine first presented its concept for the project.
“PRDs encourage innovations in residential and nonresidential development so that the growing demand for housing and other development may be met by greater variety in type, design and layout of dwellings and other buildings and structures, and by the conservation and more efficient use of open space ancillary to said dwellings and uses,” Schoch wrote.
Planning commission will have another opportunity to review the tentative PRD plan at its Dec. 3 meeting, and College Township Council has scheduled a public hearing for Dec. 19.
“This is going to be a marquee project for [Burkentine],” Borger said. “They’ll take the feedback and really listen… i see them as having a vital stake in the community moving forward.”
The township has 180 days from the date of submission to approve or deny the plan, which would require a decision by April. Individual land development plans will also be required for each phase of the development.
Burkentine’s proposed PRD is the biggest piece yet of a long-anticipated development boom in the Dale Summit area along the Shiloh Road corridor.
Jersey Mike’s recently opened its newly constructed third Centre County location at 454 Shiloh Road, and last week Hospitality Asset Management Company broke ground for a four-story 115-room Home2 Suites by Hilton on a 3-acre lot near the intersection of Shiloh and East Trout roads, next to Maxwell Truck and Equipment.
The hotel is part of an anticipated Shiloh Commercial Park on adjoining parcels owned by Ed Maxwell. A subdivision includes two other lots for development in phase one of the development, and a second phase is expected to include four more commercial lots — though Maxwell told StateCollege.com that nothing beyond the hotel has been decided.
