Early Concept Plan from the Township files.
Note: This plan has been revised, and no "official" version
of the site plan has yet been submitted to the Township.
History of the Benderson Development
"Secret Shopping Center"
The following represents what I (Ken McCrea) have been able to determine from documents in the public files that the Township maintains, from public notices in the Ephrata Review, and meeting minutes prepared by the Township, and from my own recordings of the public meetings. Many of the documents in the file for this project are quite lengthy, so in most cases only excerpts from them are given here.
Part 1: 2005
April 8, 2005
The engineer for the Benderson Development project wrote to
the Township requesting a pre-planning meeting on the shopping center project.
4-8-2005 letter
May 18, 2005
The Township held the requested pre-planning meeting with
representatives from the project.
Early Concept Plan from the Township files.
Note: This plan has been revised, and no "official" version
of the site plan has yet been submitted to the Township.
August 17, 2005
Mark Lewis, the East
Cocalico Township transportation engineer (of HRG, Inc.) reports in an email to
the Township concerning a meeting with PennDOT (on 8/17/2005) about the Highway
Occupancy Permit (required by PennDOT for the project). He recommended
that the proposed hospital directly across from this proposed shopping center
not be included in the traffic study because no formal plan has been submitted
for that project yet. [The net result of this would be that any traffic
study would significantly underestimate the traffic that would be present after
a hospital is built.] 8-17-2005 email
August 23, 2005
Township Manager Karen Koncle emails Township transportation
engineer reporting that the Board of Supervisors are requesting a much larger
area for the traffic study. It closed with "...if the shopping center
comes to fruition in the style presented by Benderson, it will have a huge area
of draw." [In other words, will probably have a very significant impact on the
amount of traffic in the whole area, not just in the area around the site.]
8-23-2005 email
September 30, 2005
The engineer for the Benderson shopping center project
submits to the Township the draft they prepared of the revised Township Zoning
Ordinance for shopping centers. 9-30-2005 Cover
Letter
December 6, 2005
Another pre-planning meeting was held including the Township
and the East Cocalico Township Authority and representatives from the Developer.
This meeting dealt with water, zoning, traffic, and other issues. Below is
the attendance list for this meeting:
The following memo was found in the
Township's file
with the minutes from that meeting:
December 28, 2005
The engineer for the Benderson shopping center project
submits a revised site plan to the Township.
This is just another revision, and
not the final version.
History of the Secret Shopping Center," Part 2
© 2007 Ken McCrea