Since the County has not been awarded a $91.5 million federal transportation grant, High Real Estate Group is looking for other ways to fund about $48.2 million in Route 30 / Harrisburg Pike improvements needed to accommodate their planned “Crossings at Conestoga Creek” shopping center. At the Monday, February 22 meeting of the Lancaster County transportation coordinating committee, the prospect of County help appeared unlikely.
The planning commission’s transportation improvement program (TIP) determines the allocation of more than $197 million in local, state, and federal funds for area transportation improvements over the next four years. Lancaster City Mayor Rick Gray, vice chair of the committee, told NewsLanc that improvements accommodating the shopping center are nowhere on the immediate horizon.
“It’s a big jump at this point,” Gray said, “They’ve got a lot of bridges to cross before they get to that one.”
The 650,000 square foot Crossings center, with an estimated $100 million dollar price tag, would be one of the largest shopping destinations in Lancaster County, located within a mile of the Park City Center. The project has proven controversial due to its potential impact on local traffic, its development of nearby farmland, and its likelihood to shrink the City’s dwindling tax base. (The Park City Center pays taxes to the City, while the Crossings would be located within Manheim Township.)
Lisa Riggs, executive director of the James Street Improvement District, asked that the committee remain open to supporting a particular element of the grant application—namely, the implementation of a pedestrian walkway to connect the city to Long’s Park.
“We’re hoping to get some private money in to do some preliminary design work on that, and we don’t know what direction that may lead,” Riggs said, “Again, we don’t know exactly what we’re talking about (we’ll need to look at that a bit further), but, as we go down that road, we’re hoping to do it very quickly, and it may be a real strong candidate for some improvements in the time frame [of these funds].”
“We see it as a major quality-of-life opportunity for people in that corridor—trying to connect downtown Lancaster, Long’s Park, and some of the other amenities there by bike or walking,” Riggs asserted.
County Commissioner Scott Martin, chair of the committee, later noted that, in the future, other streams of transportation enhancement funding could also be available to support the trail project.
I thought that at least some of these roadway improvements were not so much absolutely essential to the project itself as kind of going above and beyond so that there’s more in it for the locals.