The Henderson Group wanted to hear concerns that Chadds Ford residents might have about a Hilton Hotel and the completion of the loop road. Henderson got an earful.
The Henderson Group owns the Chadds Ford Business Campus and, as previously reported, wants to build a restaurant and a Hilton Hotel on the former Gakis property off of Dickinson Drive at Route 1. Henderson is also offering to build the final leg of the loop road system around the intersection of routes 1 and 202.
In order for the plan to go through, a zoning change would be needed. The back portion of the 5.4-acre parcel is in the Light Industrial Zoning District. The front portion of the property is zoned B Business. The back portion would have to be rezoned to B, but then there would also need to be a conditional use hearing for the hotel.
Attorney Mark D’Amico and engineer Chuck Olivo represented Henderson during the Sept. 10 Planning Commission meeting during which they presented the sketch for the development. A sketch plan is not a formal proposal. It’s a concept plan for discussion purposes.
As Olivo said to Planning Commission members and the audience, “We want to hear your concerns.”
And they did. More than a dozen residents, mostly from Painters Crossing Condominiums, and a few from the Estates at Chadds Ford, spoke their minds, mostly against the plan.
One resident said, “This is going to change Chadds Ford dramatically, change Painters Crossing from a pleasant community to one where there’s a lot of noise.”
Another compared the tree-filled Gakis property as a rainforest that soaks up carbon dioxide and pumps oxygen into the atmosphere. She said kids growing up near major streets have more instances of asthma.
If that plan would go through, she said, “You’re taking away our lungs.”
The primary concerns from the residents were noise and light pollution, traffic and stormwater runoff.
Olivo said there is currently a lot of uncontrolled runoff, but that the development would control stormwater by piping into an already existing basin. Without that piping, the water goes wherever it wants, he said.
The proposed Hilton Hotel, an extended stay facility, is four stories with 107 rooms. The restaurant would be 5,000 square feet. Combined, the two buildings would have 250 parking spaces.
Olivo said the potential light pollution would be controlled by the township’s lighting ordinance that doesn’t allow for light to spill from one property to another. He added that the lighting plan would call for downcast lights.
“We’ll have zero light leaving the property,” he said.
The biggest concern, though, is traffic. Residents are concerned that the possibility of two new businesses would bring in more traffic, but are highly concerned over the completion of the loop road. Doing that calls for extending Hillman Drive from Route 202 to Route 1 across from Brandywine Drive.
“What would the traffic impact be for the condos,” asked Christine Jones who lives in Painters Crossing.
Olivo said township engineer Joe Mastronardo helped redraw the line of the road, reconstructed its entrance onto condo property and basically realigned the loop for safe access.
Other condominium residents, Ron Coates, Vickie Hoxter and Valerie Hoxter also questioned Olivo on aspects of the road and hotel. They wanted to know the distances between the hotel parcel and the condominium property, as well as distances between the road and one of the condo buildings.
Olivo said the buildings were 400 feet apart and the roadway would be 150 feet from the closet condo building.
Valerie Hoxter also said that former Supervisor Garry Paul said he would never approve the loop road if trucks were allowed to use it.
Dolores Vitale, also from Painters Crossing, said the lights, water runoff and the possibility of drunks in the area were a complete turnoff.
“I don’t want it,” she said. “You’re impacting on Painters Crossing.”
Only one person spoke favorably about the project, that being Bill Bunch of William Bunch Auctions at Hillman Drive and Route 202.
He said completing the loop road would be a boon to the area, helping traffic flow more smoothly. He acknowledged that there might be more traffic, but that would happen anyway. The loop would allow traffic to find “equilibrium.”
We can bemoan lights, traffic and stormwater, but development will come, he said. But he added there already is an unsafe loop road section, that being Dickinson Drive through the business campus. Motorists can use that road going from north on Route 1 to south on 202, but to go from Dickinson to southbound Route 1 is dangerous because there’s no traffic light at Route 1 and Dickinson.
Extending Hillman Drive, Bunch said, “will finish a safe, useful loop road system. You’ll now have options.”
The extended road will have the benefit of the already existing traffic light at Brandywine Drive.
He added that an extended stay hotel would not add as much traffic as one where people stay only for a night or two.
“This project should go through,” Bunch said.
When he finished, resident Anne Ponds asked him what was in it for him.
Bunch responded that there was no money going into his pocket, but that he might have a better ride to work in the morning.
Because it’s still a sketch plan, there could be no vote by the Planning Commission members. However, Chairman Craig Huffman offered some suggestions.
He said he noted there were 10 ingress and egress areas on the proposed Hillman Drive extension.
“That’s not a loop road,” he said.
Huffman said those points should be reduced and that calming circles should be installed where the road goes by Evergreen Drive — the lone access road for the Estates of Chadds Ford — and where the road would intersect with the road to and from the condominiums.
“We’re going to spend a lot of time thinking about this,” Huffman said.
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
