June 5, 2009

The energy coming from the Unionville High School music room Thursday night came from members of the Unionville Marching Band Boosters getting organized to host their first cavalcade.

A cavalcade is a marching band competition – a two-hour halftime show, as some  call them. And while the school’s band has taken part in them before – and took first place in a state competition in Harrisburg last year – this October the school be host for the first time in cavalcade entitled March on the Brandywine.

About a dozen schools are lined up to take part in the Oct. 17 event. Most are local but one school coming from Fredricksburg, Va.

Much of the business Thursday night dealt with the need to find sponsors for the cavalcade and sell ads for the program. But cavalcade co-chairs Nancy Agnew and RaeLynn Bond got to announce the winner of the program cover contest.

That honor went to Meg Boeni, a ninth-grader from East Marlborough Township. Her winning entry will be on the cavalcade’s Web site www.marchonthebrandywine.com. The site is not yet operative.

The boosters are a parent group whose mission is to support the marching band through fund-raising, providing support for equipment and maintaining uniforms.

The boosters will also be chaperoning the band camp coming up in August for a week at Chadds Ford Elementary School and two days at Unionville High.

The plans for a new hospital – to be run by Main Line Health – are still active in Concord Township, but that’s about all. There’s been no groundbreaking and it’s unclear when that might happen.

Those comments came from Concord Township Supervisors’ Chairman Dominic A. Pileggi who, along with Vice Chairman Colleen Morrone addressed members of the Chadds Ford Business Association during the group’s June lunch meeting.

Pileggi and Morrone were updating CBFA members on activities in Concord Township.

Pileggi said the hospital plans are stalled because of the current economic climate, but action could come rapidly once that climate changes.

Main Line Health, the owner of Lankenau and several other hospitals – has had plans in the works for several years for a 300-bed facility along Route 1 behind Carousel Toyota. Original plans were to break ground sometime in 2007 with the first building completed by the end of 2008 or early 2009.

Pileggi said that part of the plans include more road improvements including a new road and traffic light along the car dealership at Route 1. That road would be the main entrance to the hospital.  There would also be another road near Applied Card Way.

In addition to the bed facility, there will also be several other medical buildings. Pileggi said it’s likely a 10- or 15-year project.

Another project, a commercial development at Route 202 and Ridge Road is also on hold because of the economy, Pileggi said. That plan called for a 300,000 square foot shopping center across from Olde Ridge Village in Chadds Ford Township.

“That’s going to be tabled for a while,” Pileggi said.

There are several other shopping centers planned for the area along Route 202, he said, several drug stores and also several banks. Pileggi said there are more than 20 banks planning to come into Concord Township.

Morrone told members that Concord would be moving into a new township building, possibly as early as this fall.

The township will leave the building it currently shares with the Rachel Kohl Community Library on Smithbridge Road for a new building at Thornton Road and Route 1, at the site of the Church of Our Savior. The project cost $2 million, she said.

The library will stay, expanding into areas of the building that had been used by the township.