[Image: Developer’s rendition of what the Wegmans Center will look like. I note the pigeons, which I haven’t seen since moving to Newtown from NYC. But geese? Yes! There are lots of geese in the area. I’m sure the Wegmans Center will be a favorite watering hole for them.]
Lower Makefield Supervisors Will Likely Vote to Finally Approve the Wegmans “Mixed-Use” Center Despite Resident Opposition
Supervisors in Lower Makefield Township plan a vote Wednesday that could give final approval to a development that would include housing and a Wegmans grocery on Stony Hill Road.
The vote, on the agenda for supervisors' 7:30 p.m. meeting, would give final approval to the land development plan for Prickett Preserve at Edgewood, a 32-acre "live, work, play" development across from Shady Brook Farm.
UPDATE (8 April 2021): "Lower Makefield Wegman's Development Wins Final Approval"
Previously, supervisors voted in 2019 to approve a zoning change needed to build the development and, in September, voted 4-1 to grant initial approval to the plans after a five-and-a-half-hour public meeting. [Read “Lower Makefield Supervisors Vote to Allow Wegmans Development to Avoid Lawsuit”]
The development would be anchored by a 100,000-square-foot Wegman's supermarket. Other plans include 200 town homes with a clubhouse and swimming pool, 55,000 square feet devoted to other retailers, a pharmacy and another 35,000 square feet for restaurants and other retail.
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This type of “mixed use” zoning is all the rage now. View the video of Seth Shapiro, Director of Planning and Urban Design at BartonPartners, who was a guest speaker at the April 1, 2021, Newtown Economic Committee (EDC) Zoom meeting. In the beginning of his presentation - at the bequest of EDC member Karen Miller, a real estate developer in Newtown - Mr. Shapiro discusses his firm's work on the Wegmans project in Lower Makefield. “It’s gone quite smoothly,” said Mr. Shapiro who failed to mention that Lower Makefield residents “jammed” an August 12, 2019 hearing to protest this development.
It’s interesting to note that Mr. Shapiro’s presentation focused on how “mixed-use” zoning will solve a problem of the traditional “Euclidean” zoning; i.e., traffic! Interesting because increased traffic is one of the major concerns voiced by residents. True that residents in a mixed-use center will not have to drive to Wegmans, the bank or the drug store, but residents from surrounding communities and towns like Newtown will surely drive to the mixed-use center drawn in by Wegmans and mixed-use residents will definitely still drive to sites “off the reservation” so to speak; at least Newtown business hope they will!
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