Developer Unveils New Vision For North Broad Street Site In Doylestown

DOYLESTOWN BOROUGH, PA —Philadelphia-based Arcadia Land Company presented a new vision Tuesday night for the former Tilley Fire Equipment site at 280 North Broad Street located across from the former Intelligencer site.

Appearing before the Doylestown Borough Planning Commission, representatives from Arcadia, partnering with Pennrose Bricks and Mortar, unveiled a concept plan to redevelop the nearly four acre site in Doylestown Borough and Doylestown Township with 18 market rate, non-age restricted townhouses and a 60-unit affordable one bedroom apartment building for seniors.

The concept is far different from an idea put forward several years ago by Arcadia that would have mirrored what is being built across the street at the former Intelligencer site and included more than 200 new market-rate luxury apartments.

"We talked about a very dense, market rate multi-family project with ground floor retail. We tried to develop architecture honoring the industrial heritage of this area. We heard back from you that the architectural character was nice, but it was too much," Arcadia's Jason Duckworth told the planning commission. "It was too dense, too much traffic and there was a concern about whether the community needed more luxury housing."

Duckworth said Arcadia spent the last few years looking at different options and concepts before coming together with Pennrose and rethinking a project that is less dense, dramatically reduces the traffic impact and makes "a big stride" toward addressing the affordability concerns of the community.

"We've endeavored to create something that is not as massive, that's more domestic in scale, has a lesser traffic impact and not just through fewer units. We're looking at units that generate lesser traffic," said Duckworth. "And we wanted to mix attainable market rate with affordable housing."

Proposed twin town homes fronting on North Broad Street would replace the former Tilley Fire Equipment building.

On the borough portion of the property, the cinder block building, which how houses an e-commerce business, would be torn down and replaced by eight three-story twin townhouses with eight foot deep front porches, two of which would front on North Broad across from the Intelligencer site. The fee simple, market rate townhouses would sell in the $600,000 range.

The back portion of the property, about three acres located in the township, would be redeveloped with 10 additional market rate townhouses and a brick mill building that would house the 60-unit affordable, age-restricted apartments.

Pennrose, which has a track record of developing affordable housing throughout the region, would take the lead on the age-restricted building. It would also manage the building following construction.

"One of the things that was important for Arcadia was that so often there is a fear of affordable housing," said Duckworth. "We wanted to show that we're going to put our money where our mouth is and we fully plan to manage the project in a way that market rate housing and affordable housing can be sold side-by-side and that everybody can be a good neighbor."

Looking down the street through the development toward the age-restricted senior housing building.

Courtyard and Square showing the age-restricted housing, at right, and townhomes.

While the project is separated by a municipal boundary line, the development would be managed as a single neighborhood with common facilities, common management, common architectural style and a common architectural palette.

"We're not interested in having the market rate and the affordable housing look markedly different," said Duckworth. "We don't want them to read as one being separated from the other. The hope is that conceivably you'd have a younger generation and an older generation living side by side."

The site, said Duckworth, is ideally located for residential and senior living, noting its high rating on the walkability scale.

"We are really excited about this property because of its walkable location," said Duckworth. "Doylestown is a remarkably walkable community, but within Doylestown this is one of the most walkable sections of the community. Not only does it afford proximity to your historic downtown core, it also provides for walkable accessibility to the Doylestown Shopping Center.

"Within 10 minutes you can walk to two separate Starbucks, which is among the few places in the Philadelphia suburbs where that is possible," said Duckworth. "There are a lot of amenities within walking distance - grocery, medical, the borough's beautiful new park, a senior center, a post office."

According to Duckworth, the site scored 82 out of 100 for walkability, which he said is unusually high for a suburban location.

The project is part of an ongoing transformation of the North Broad Street corridor which has seen a major shift over the past 20 years from industrial to residential and commercial.

"The transformation has been pretty remarkable," said Duckworth. "We are hoping what we are considering will be an appropriate, contributing development to this pattern of transformation."

Town planners listened to the presentation, asked a few questions, but raised no major issue with the concept.

"We'll see you in due course for preliminary," said commission chairman James Lannon.