Plans
mulled for train station site
By
DAN KRISTIE , Daily Local News 09/16/2008
TREDYFFRIN
— Community leaders are working on a proposal
to help sell the Paoli Transit Center project to neighbors
who may be wary of it. The plan is to make the current
Paoli Train Station, which will be demolished after
the transit center is built, into a "village green."
"Downtown Paoli has almost zero
green space," said Ed Auble, a Paoli Business Association
member who helped craft the proposal. "If there
were a village green, and it were well done, it would
be something we could all point to as a Paoli landmark."
Such a landmark would help the town,
known mainly for its train station, develop a new identity,
Auble added.
"We've even been toying with
the idea of having an annual blues fest at the village
green," Auble said.
He acknowledged he may be getting
ahead of himself — the village green proposal
is in early stages, and it's not on any official plans
for the Paoli Transit Center.
For now, official plans call for
the existing train station to be demolished and an intermodal
transit center to be built 800 feet to its west. This
transit center would include a parking garage and stops
for local buses and Amtrak and SEPTA trains.
Amtrak and SEPTA are working with
several municipal entities on the new transit center,
which will be built on the Amtrak-owned Paoli Rail Yard,
a vacant, 26-acre industrial site.
To help fund the transit center,
Amtrak would allow a private developer to build a dense,
mixed residential and commercial development on the
rest of the rail yard.
Many Paoli residents are unhappy
with this proposal. They believe the new real estate
development and transit center will draw more traffic
to the town's frequently clogged roads.
But there is evidence the "village
green" proposal has convinced some residents that
they could see benefits from the transit center development.
"Any plan that includes green
space would be fantastic," said Betsy Allinson,
a Paoli resident who has served as spokeswoman for her
community at many transit center planning meetings.
But, Allinson added, "Our main
concern will still be whether Paoli's roads can handle
the traffic generated by new developments."
The village green proposal, which
Auble crafted in conjunction with Paoli Business Association
member Dave Roland and former Tredyffrin Supervisor
Paul Drucker, calls for a government entity to purchase
the old train station property from Amtrak once the
new transit center is built. Public, and possibly private,
funds would be used to make the purchase and turn the
property into a park.
The earliest that ground could break
on the new transit center is the beginning of the next
decade, according to officials involved in the transit
center project.
Drucker, who is running for the state
House's 157th District, said a village green would benefit
Amtrak by driving up property values in the new transit
center development.
"The economic advantage to Amtrak
can't even be debated," Drucker said.
County Commissioner Carol Aichele
said the county might consider putting open-space funds
toward the village green project.
"It certainly falls within municipal
grants portion of the open-space program," Aichele
said. "The county regularly considers providing
funds for parks, and we'll certainly consider this one."
An Amtrak representative did not
immediately return calls seeking comment.
©The Phoenix 2008
Paoli
train station project gets big boost
By DAN KRISTIE, Staff
Writer, Daily Local News - 09/03/2008
TREDYFFRIN — The Paoli train
station project received a $500,000 bipartisan boost
from Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach and Democratic
U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak. The pair jointly announced the
federal earmark for Amtrak to build a new transit center
at the Paoli Rail Yard.
The congressmen said the new transit
center will have implications beyond regional transit.
"We recognize, Joe Sestak and
I, that this is such an important project for the continued
redevelopment of this area," said Gerlach, R-6th,
of West Pikeland. "It will improve the quality
of life and the quality of transit here."
Sestak, D-7th, of Edgmont, has opposed
the change in FAA flight patterns that would take many
of the Philadelphia International Airport's flights
over residential areas in his district. He said a better
Paoli Transit Center could help decrease reliance on
air travel.
"Many of the flights leaving
from the airport are flying to destinations less than
200 miles away," Sestak said. "Those people
should be using this train station."
The $500,000 earmark will go toward
construction of a "multi-modal" transit center
that will serve Amtrak and SEPTA trains, as well as
local buses. According to plans, it will be built 800
feet west of the current Paoli Train Station, a local
landmark many people in this Main Line town scorn and
call "decrepit."
The question is, when will the new
transit center be built?
Amtrak, which owns the station as
well as the adjacent Paoli Rail Yard, plans to fund
the new transit center by allowing a private developer
to build a dense, mixed residential and commercial development
on the rail yard site.
But because of a recent zoning dispute,
that developer might not be able to build densely enough
to make the project profitable. The Paoli Rail Yard
was contaminated with PCBs, and although it is for the
most part cleaned up, developing the site will still
be expensive.
Zoning and cost concerns caused the
developer, as of yet unnamed, to consider pulling out
of the project late last year, according to officials
familiar with the project.
But these officials said recent negotiations
have put the project back on track.
John DiBuonaventuro, a Tredyffrin
supervisor involved in the negotiations, acknowledged
this at Saturday's check presentation.
"The project has done a 180,"
he said.
Earlier this year, negotiations were
stalled because Tredyffrin and Willistown townships,
the two municipalities that exercise zoning control
over the rail yard, had different visions for the parcel's
development, according to officials.
DiBuonaventuro and Willistown Supervisor
Norm MacQueen said those differences have been ironed
out.
The $500,000 from the federal government
will be put into use as soon as negotiations between
the developer, the transit agencies and the municipalities
involved in the transit center project are complete,
according to Rich Burnfield, SEPTA's chief financial
officer.
"But it's always good to have
the money in place so that when the agreement is in
place we don't have to then get the money," Burnfield
said.
According to estimates officials
involved in the project have given over the past months,
the transit center project could get under way early
next decade.
©Daily Local News 2008
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