I'm a little mixed about this one. On one hand, land owners should be able to do what they want with their property. On the other hand, I'm really worried about sprawl and what it is doing to farm land.
In 1981 I worked on a horse farm in Mendon and remember driving through pastured farmland with wooden fences and it was beautiful. Over the next 10 to 20 years the scenery had changed from farms to housing tracts. All that tillable soil is never to be recovered. I'm just using Mendon as an example.
We simply can't afford to continue covering available land with houses, buildings, blacktop and concrete. Food needs to be grown somewhere.
If a corporation pressures the owner of an active farm into selling property for commercial development, laws should protect that farm from being put out of operation. If a property owner wishes to sell acreage- at one time farmed, it's no one's business except the owner and potential buyer. When farmland ceases to be farmed, it is nolonger a farm.
As to the quality of our soil... Most of the northeast is former timberland that was stripped of trees for farming in the 18th Century. For generations the land was farmed to the point of depletion. Since then, the soil has been saturated with manufactured fertilizers and other chemicals. ...It's not what one would call prime.
C.M., All farm land used to be some other type of land at one time or another. Manufactured fertilizers are the exact same thing as what occurs naturally. Phosphates are phosphates and nitrogen is nitrogen.
The farms around here grow bumper crops and the orchards produce some of the best fruit in the world. If our farm land isn't "prime", what areas of the country "would" you call prime?
All farms regardless of location use fertilizers in conjunction with crop rotation. Modern farming techniques and fertilizers produce the most abundant and nutritious food EVER grown.
I agree that an individual land owner should be able to sell to anyone they want to but it's a shame when I can drive past former rolling pastures and see countless houses. Maybe I'm just more of a romanticist than a realist. I have literally cried, though.
The road I grew up on had 2 houses when we first moved in. Now when I make the 75 mile trip to that part of Seneca County, I don't even recognize that small black of land for all the houses that have gone up. The world changes, I understand this, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
When Kodak relocated Eastman Pharmaceuticals to the Great Valley Corporate Center in Malvern PA, it's facility was located in a corporate center that once was a large farm.
There were pros and cons.
The main barn was converted into a corporate meeting facility. There was a bar/restaurant on the bottom level; a cafeteria on the main level; and meeting rooms on the top level. It was within walking distance from many of the original businesses that were in the center.
They managed (at first) to keep the rural flavor of the area. It was peaceful to look out the window and see open countryside.
The downside was the lack of infrastructure.
Imagine a large corporate center built on a two lane side road off routes 63 or 77.
Imagine the traffic clogging that two lane road with people coming and leaving work.
Eventually, the corporate center will have more than the original handful of companies and becomes attractive to restaurants; hotels; shopping plazas and housing developers.
The original intent of a facility in the peaceful rural area is now a facility that requires an infrastructure beyond the scope of the initial plan.
This scenario can and does happen. I watched it in two corporate centers where Eastman Pharmaceuticals (eventually Sterling Drug)located. The other location was in the planned community of Chesterbrook at the top of Misery Mountain, across from Valley Forge National Park.
The traffic congestion caused by the corporate center was so bad that it would take over a half hour to drive the three miles from the office to King of Prussia.
Is this really what is needed or wanted for the town of Alabama?
Chesterbrook Corporate Center® is placed between two major highways.
This premier office park, owned by Pitcairn Properties, offers urban convenience and exceptional amenities and services in a suburban setting adjoining Valley Forge National Historical Park. The 150-acre corporate center is an integral part of Chesterbrook, a comprehensively planned, 865-acre residential community. Chesterbrook's unique amenities include the following:
Nine restaurants
120,000 square foot shopping center
Day-care facility
Wyndham Valley Forge All-Suites Hotel
Public transportation, SEPTA's Rtes. 92 and 208, provides service for local commuters and offers connections to regional rail lines
Nine miles of jogging trails connecting Chesterbrook with Valley Forge National 90 acre recreational park
200 acres of permanently dedicated open space
Chesterbrook's own interchange at Route 202 (5 minutes from the PA Turnpike and Schuylkill Expressway)
Broadband infrastructure offering high-speed bandwidth over multiple fiber optic networks as well as wireless providers
Image-enhancing architecture, extensive landscaping and exceptional technological amenities have attracted international corporations as well as regional and local firms to Chesterbrook Corporate Center®.
Later I worked in the Pruneyard in Campbell, CA.
The Pruneyard was named for the business that drove the economy of Campbell, a canning factory and prune yards.
What originally was three office buildings (mine is the one in the middle on the map) turned into a a massive shopping/hotel area. http://www.pruneyard.com/Directory.aspx
I think that we are talking also about 2 totally different areas. Chesterbrook is a suburb of Philadelphia and not that far from NYC. I don't forsee Alabama having the same problems. The next problem I do have is that farmers have worked all of their lives to acquire all of the land they have. If they want to sell it to a big corporation so be it. If you all want to see it preserved then when someone comes in and offers a big price maybe the town should have to match it or go away. If it paid more to be in farming there may be less tendency to go away from the family farm. Until farming turns around in this country and prices pick up you will see farms continue to be sold.
C.M.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Chesterbrook. I even liked Great Valley (also in a suburb of Philadelphia and close to NYC), and it is more the scenario with Great Valley that I can see for a corporate center in Alabama.
Granted, if a farmer wants to sell the land to a major developer, that is his right.
What happens after that is up to the town of Alabama planning board. If this center is built, I hope they have the foresight to make the right decisions.
I don't think Alabama is ideal, but at the same time, I believe that these land owners should be able to do what they want with their land.
As far as the actual benefits of this center, hard to pass up what it is going to bring. In a time when jobs are scarce and good paying jobs are even more difficult to find out here, it's a no brainer. We need projects like this.
I understand people's concerns, but I don't think that the government should have the right to say "No you can't sell your land." What's next? The government tells you can't sell your house? Your Car? Where do we draw the line?
It isn't so much that they can't sell their land, it is having a plan in place to accomodate, and anticipate, the development of the area.
Yes, it will provide good paying jobs, but it will also pull people in from neighboring counties. What plan will they have in place to deal with those coming to Alabama to work? Not so much for the "good paying" jobs but for the associated service jobs (read that as lower paying jobs) that will come available. Bus service? Shuttle?
Will they have to build more roads to make sure that there is more than one entrance/exit to the center. This was a downfall at both Chesterbrook and Great Valley (which was once farmland). There were bottlenecks every morning and evening. Also, there was no plan for emergency vehicles to enter the area other than that one driveway.
Who is responsible for the price of the additional infrastructure? The county residents? The town of Alabama? How much will taxes be raised to make this happen?
I think that is all apart of the planning and zoning board's job. As far as taxes being raised. The Article quoted a considerable amount of monies being added to the tax base. I'm sure that any additonal cost could be covered in that.
Like I said before, not in love with Alabama as the choice. I really think something like this would be better served in Batavia where the infrastructure is already in place, but it's hard to turn down an opportunity like this when there aren't that many coming this way.
Like I said before these government funded if we build they will come pipe dream projects haven't worked for the last 50 years. The government should stop throwing money around trying to bribe people to stay and businesses to come.
Phil, of course I agree with your free market perspective, but let's keep in mind, this isn't entirely a free market project.
It isn't like some company came in said, "Hey, farmers, we want to buy your land."
If it were entirely a free market transaction, the balance of it works out very differently.
So far, this is entirely a government product with no private investment so far. This is tax dollars being used to force something that we can't so for sure that the open market will value. It's also tax dollars being used to force change on a community that may or may not want that change.
So the free market argument doesn't quite fit.
I think it's a least worth a pause to think -- is this really the best thing for this section of Genesee County? I don't think it's cut and dry either way.
Understood. I guess where I am coming from in this whole thing is we know how to bring companies in right? It's pretty simple really, happens all over the county.
1. Enough Land (Scarce Natural Resource)
2. Good infrastructure (power, water etc)
3. Strong Workforce (another scarce natural resource)
4. Low or controllable tax rates (Fixed costs)
5. Solid community in or around to entice outside hires.
And there is a lot more. The problem is that Genesee County and this whole region doesn't have a lot of what businesses are looking for. Yes ee have land, but with that a lot of ageing outdated infrastructure. We have a work force, but the medium age keeps rising because young educated, cheap talent keeps leaving the state. We have nice communities with great neighbors, but the tax rates for both personal and professional settings are just a joke.
I do NOT agree with the government doing these deals. The best way to bring in companies is to SHRINK the size of government and spend our hard earned money on updating infrastructure and community betterment so that these types of projects would be able to happen with zero government intervention.
I'm not in love with this project. I don't even really think it's the BEST way to go. I just know that some of the major reasons why projects like this HAVE to happen are not going away anytime soon, if ever. SO if we can make something out of it, let's.
I have mixed feelings about tax subsidized programs to bring in outside companies. The results around the country are a mixed bag. Often times companies don't follow through on their hiring promises or jump ship as soon as the economic winds shift.
The best kinds of employers for a region are the ones like Chapin Industries and Graham Manufacturing. I'm not going to promise you that these companies will never move, get sold or close, but their decision to be as rooted in our community as they are have a lot more to do with their real roots than when economic incentives.
It's a people thing, not a tax break thing. They're not chasing the latest tax break or lowest labor dollar.
At least to this point.
I don't have ideas for how to do this: But we need to find a way to promote more homegrown entrepreneurship if we want to build a long-term, sustainable economic growth core to the community. It's going to be the homegrown entrepreneurs who are going to deliver us the most stable and sustainable economy.
Which brings us back to the question of whether it's the best move to take farm land out of production to woe companies that may or may not be a good fit/stick around, or even come at all?
And I'm not per se against STAMP, just saying these are the questions in my mind.
That's a good question, Howard. Bryan Phelps says to look at Lancaster and Clarence. I see in Lancaster planned "business parks" that were started up but not finished with the idea of attracting business with lower taxes and cheap land because of it being away from the congestion. The town spent money on the related infrastructure, then had to raise taxes to pay for it, and now Lancaster is not such a great deal anymore. I would not want to see that in Alabama, sure the jobs and economic boon would be good, I make my living selling to contractors. It's sort of a catch 22, you need to have long-term commitments from the people coming in, and that's tough to get without something being done on our end. I think I'll vote to pass on it, the risk is too great of having a chunk of land tied up with a half finished development, empty or under-utilized hulk buildings and a new expensive 4 lane highway (Route 77) that we'll get stuck paying for. I'm sure there is plenty of room for this somewhere in Genesee County, where the infra-structure is mostly in place.
Bea; not to belittle your opinions, but you can't compare Great Valley or Chesterbrooke to Genesee County. That's a whole different world. I worked both of those areas as a sales person and a trucker. You have millions of people within 100 miles of there, we aren't anywhere close to that. By the way, I love the southern part of Chester County, I just couldn't afford the housing, so we wound up in Cecil County, MD (a lot like Genesee County in some respects).
Dave,
there may have been millions of people, but the developers of Great Valley, in particular, took farm land and developed it hoping to attact a certain industry and did quite well.
But, no matter where that farm is located, be it Genesee Co. in NY, the rolling farmland of Pennsylvania or somewhere in Iowa, there are constants that have to be considered.
While you may have been a salesman who visited the businesses on a regular basis, I worked there every day. I saw the effects of poor planning. Since I lived both in Malvern and then Chesterbrook, they are my points of reference.
On the other hand, I can remember visiting an industrial park, in Indiana, where the primary business was manufactured homes. It was also located on an old farm. The farm house was the corporate office; the barn a corporate meeting place; and circling the main manufacturing plant were the smaller feeder companies that provided interior and exterior components for the homes. I was told that the small companies had contracts to supply the main company first, but they could also wholesale to other outlets.
This was a successful operation, where local people came together to make a company work. I could see this happening here.
It is obvious, the center in Indiana didn't have the traffic problems that I encountered in Pennsylvanis, but they did seem to have their act together as far as planning was concerned.
I see your point, Bea. I think we are on the same page about planning for the future possibilities. I think the risk of not getting enough tenants isn't worth the cost of the expense for the infrastructure. And, I am familiar with the traffic; I used to finish picking up freight somewhere in Malvern or K of P at 5 or 6 PM and drive Route 100 to 202 and south to our terminal in Wilmington almost every day for 2 years in a 24 foot box truck. I laugh when people talk about rush hour in Buffalo.
There were 28 of us who were relocated from WNY to Great Valley. This was a real start up project. The number of businesses in GV could be counted on one hand. No hotels, or other service businesses were there yet. We hired locally for support people. Their first question was where are you from? "New York", was the stock answer. Next question, "How can you stand the traffic?". Well, if you consider three cows in an intersectiion traffic, then it isn't too bad.
That question came back to haunt me when we moved to Chesterbrook. As I mentioned before, it took over a half hour to go the three miles to K o P. Traffic?
The traffic there was 100 times worse than anything here.
I lived on the other side of the valley from Valley Forge Natl. Park, so it wasn't tourist traffic clogging the highway, it was just poor planning.
There still hasn't been any mention of the farmers entertaining the idea of selling their land. It would be interesting to see who they are.
I'm a little mixed about this
I'm a little mixed about this one. On one hand, land owners should be able to do what they want with their property. On the other hand, I'm really worried about sprawl and what it is doing to farm land.
In 1981 I worked on a horse farm in Mendon and remember driving through pastured farmland with wooden fences and it was beautiful. Over the next 10 to 20 years the scenery had changed from farms to housing tracts. All that tillable soil is never to be recovered. I'm just using Mendon as an example.
We simply can't afford to continue covering available land with houses, buildings, blacktop and concrete. Food needs to be grown somewhere.
If a corporation pressures
If a corporation pressures the owner of an active farm into selling property for commercial development, laws should protect that farm from being put out of operation. If a property owner wishes to sell acreage- at one time farmed, it's no one's business except the owner and potential buyer. When farmland ceases to be farmed, it is nolonger a farm.
As to the quality of our soil... Most of the northeast is former timberland that was stripped of trees for farming in the 18th Century. For generations the land was farmed to the point of depletion. Since then, the soil has been saturated with manufactured fertilizers and other chemicals. ...It's not what one would call prime.
C.M., All farm land used to
C.M., All farm land used to be some other type of land at one time or another. Manufactured fertilizers are the exact same thing as what occurs naturally. Phosphates are phosphates and nitrogen is nitrogen.
The farms around here grow bumper crops and the orchards produce some of the best fruit in the world. If our farm land isn't "prime", what areas of the country "would" you call prime?
All farms regardless of location use fertilizers in conjunction with crop rotation. Modern farming techniques and fertilizers produce the most abundant and nutritious food EVER grown.
I agree that an individual land owner should be able to sell to anyone they want to but it's a shame when I can drive past former rolling pastures and see countless houses. Maybe I'm just more of a romanticist than a realist. I have literally cried, though.
The road I grew up on had 2 houses when we first moved in. Now when I make the 75 mile trip to that part of Seneca County, I don't even recognize that small black of land for all the houses that have gone up. The world changes, I understand this, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.
When Kodak relocated Eastman
When Kodak relocated Eastman Pharmaceuticals to the Great Valley Corporate Center in Malvern PA, it's facility was located in a corporate center that once was a large farm.
There were pros and cons.
The main barn was converted into a corporate meeting facility. There was a bar/restaurant on the bottom level; a cafeteria on the main level; and meeting rooms on the top level. It was within walking distance from many of the original businesses that were in the center.
They managed (at first) to keep the rural flavor of the area. It was peaceful to look out the window and see open countryside.
The downside was the lack of infrastructure.
Imagine a large corporate center built on a two lane side road off routes 63 or 77.
Imagine the traffic clogging that two lane road with people coming and leaving work.
Eventually, the corporate center will have more than the original handful of companies and becomes attractive to restaurants; hotels; shopping plazas and housing developers.
The original intent of a facility in the peaceful rural area is now a facility that requires an infrastructure beyond the scope of the initial plan.
This scenario can and does happen. I watched it in two corporate centers where Eastman Pharmaceuticals (eventually Sterling Drug)located. The other location was in the planned community of Chesterbrook at the top of Misery Mountain, across from Valley Forge National Park.
The traffic congestion caused by the corporate center was so bad that it would take over a half hour to drive the three miles from the office to King of Prussia.
Is this really what is needed or wanted for the town of Alabama?
These are examples of how a
These are examples of how a corporate center can grow. Is Genesee Co. and more important, Alabama, ready for this?
The Great Valley Corproate Center, Malvern PA. once rolling farmland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Valley_Corporate_Center
Chesterbrook Corporate Center® is placed between two major highways.
This premier office park, owned by Pitcairn Properties, offers urban convenience and exceptional amenities and services in a suburban setting adjoining Valley Forge National Historical Park. The 150-acre corporate center is an integral part of Chesterbrook, a comprehensively planned, 865-acre residential community. Chesterbrook's unique amenities include the following:
Nine restaurants
120,000 square foot shopping center
Day-care facility
Wyndham Valley Forge All-Suites Hotel
Public transportation, SEPTA's Rtes. 92 and 208, provides service for local commuters and offers connections to regional rail lines
Nine miles of jogging trails connecting Chesterbrook with Valley Forge National 90 acre recreational park
200 acres of permanently dedicated open space
Chesterbrook's own interchange at Route 202 (5 minutes from the PA Turnpike and Schuylkill Expressway)
Broadband infrastructure offering high-speed bandwidth over multiple fiber optic networks as well as wireless providers
Image-enhancing architecture, extensive landscaping and exceptional technological amenities have attracted international corporations as well as regional and local firms to Chesterbrook Corporate Center®.
http://chesterbrookcorporatecenter.com/main.cfm?sid=introduction&pid=ab…
Later I worked in the Pruneyard in Campbell, CA.
The Pruneyard was named for the business that drove the economy of Campbell, a canning factory and prune yards.
What originally was three office buildings (mine is the one in the middle on the map) turned into a a massive shopping/hotel area.
http://www.pruneyard.com/Directory.aspx
I think that we are talking
I think that we are talking also about 2 totally different areas. Chesterbrook is a suburb of Philadelphia and not that far from NYC. I don't forsee Alabama having the same problems. The next problem I do have is that farmers have worked all of their lives to acquire all of the land they have. If they want to sell it to a big corporation so be it. If you all want to see it preserved then when someone comes in and offers a big price maybe the town should have to match it or go away. If it paid more to be in farming there may be less tendency to go away from the family farm. Until farming turns around in this country and prices pick up you will see farms continue to be sold.
C.M. Don't get me wrong, I
C.M.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Chesterbrook. I even liked Great Valley (also in a suburb of Philadelphia and close to NYC), and it is more the scenario with Great Valley that I can see for a corporate center in Alabama.
Granted, if a farmer wants to sell the land to a major developer, that is his right.
What happens after that is up to the town of Alabama planning board. If this center is built, I hope they have the foresight to make the right decisions.
I agree E.S. I don't think
I agree E.S.
I don't think Alabama is ideal, but at the same time, I believe that these land owners should be able to do what they want with their land.
As far as the actual benefits of this center, hard to pass up what it is going to bring. In a time when jobs are scarce and good paying jobs are even more difficult to find out here, it's a no brainer. We need projects like this.
I understand people's concerns, but I don't think that the government should have the right to say "No you can't sell your land." What's next? The government tells you can't sell your house? Your Car? Where do we draw the line?
It isn't so much that they
It isn't so much that they can't sell their land, it is having a plan in place to accomodate, and anticipate, the development of the area.
Yes, it will provide good paying jobs, but it will also pull people in from neighboring counties. What plan will they have in place to deal with those coming to Alabama to work? Not so much for the "good paying" jobs but for the associated service jobs (read that as lower paying jobs) that will come available. Bus service? Shuttle?
Will they have to build more roads to make sure that there is more than one entrance/exit to the center. This was a downfall at both Chesterbrook and Great Valley (which was once farmland). There were bottlenecks every morning and evening. Also, there was no plan for emergency vehicles to enter the area other than that one driveway.
Who is responsible for the price of the additional infrastructure? The county residents? The town of Alabama? How much will taxes be raised to make this happen?
Good Questions. I think that
Good Questions.
I think that is all apart of the planning and zoning board's job. As far as taxes being raised. The Article quoted a considerable amount of monies being added to the tax base. I'm sure that any additonal cost could be covered in that.
Like I said before, not in love with Alabama as the choice. I really think something like this would be better served in Batavia where the infrastructure is already in place, but it's hard to turn down an opportunity like this when there aren't that many coming this way.
Like I said before these
Like I said before these government funded if we build they will come pipe dream projects haven't worked for the last 50 years. The government should stop throwing money around trying to bribe people to stay and businesses to come.
Phil, of course I agree with
Phil, of course I agree with your free market perspective, but let's keep in mind, this isn't entirely a free market project.
It isn't like some company came in said, "Hey, farmers, we want to buy your land."
If it were entirely a free market transaction, the balance of it works out very differently.
So far, this is entirely a government product with no private investment so far. This is tax dollars being used to force something that we can't so for sure that the open market will value. It's also tax dollars being used to force change on a community that may or may not want that change.
So the free market argument doesn't quite fit.
I think it's a least worth a pause to think -- is this really the best thing for this section of Genesee County? I don't think it's cut and dry either way.
Understood. I guess where I
Understood. I guess where I am coming from in this whole thing is we know how to bring companies in right? It's pretty simple really, happens all over the county.
1. Enough Land (Scarce Natural Resource)
2. Good infrastructure (power, water etc)
3. Strong Workforce (another scarce natural resource)
4. Low or controllable tax rates (Fixed costs)
5. Solid community in or around to entice outside hires.
And there is a lot more. The problem is that Genesee County and this whole region doesn't have a lot of what businesses are looking for. Yes ee have land, but with that a lot of ageing outdated infrastructure. We have a work force, but the medium age keeps rising because young educated, cheap talent keeps leaving the state. We have nice communities with great neighbors, but the tax rates for both personal and professional settings are just a joke.
I do NOT agree with the government doing these deals. The best way to bring in companies is to SHRINK the size of government and spend our hard earned money on updating infrastructure and community betterment so that these types of projects would be able to happen with zero government intervention.
I'm not in love with this project. I don't even really think it's the BEST way to go. I just know that some of the major reasons why projects like this HAVE to happen are not going away anytime soon, if ever. SO if we can make something out of it, let's.
I have mixed feelings about
I have mixed feelings about tax subsidized programs to bring in outside companies. The results around the country are a mixed bag. Often times companies don't follow through on their hiring promises or jump ship as soon as the economic winds shift.
The best kinds of employers for a region are the ones like Chapin Industries and Graham Manufacturing. I'm not going to promise you that these companies will never move, get sold or close, but their decision to be as rooted in our community as they are have a lot more to do with their real roots than when economic incentives.
It's a people thing, not a tax break thing. They're not chasing the latest tax break or lowest labor dollar.
At least to this point.
I don't have ideas for how to do this: But we need to find a way to promote more homegrown entrepreneurship if we want to build a long-term, sustainable economic growth core to the community. It's going to be the homegrown entrepreneurs who are going to deliver us the most stable and sustainable economy.
Which brings us back to the question of whether it's the best move to take farm land out of production to woe companies that may or may not be a good fit/stick around, or even come at all?
And I'm not per se against STAMP, just saying these are the questions in my mind.
That's a good question,
That's a good question, Howard. Bryan Phelps says to look at Lancaster and Clarence. I see in Lancaster planned "business parks" that were started up but not finished with the idea of attracting business with lower taxes and cheap land because of it being away from the congestion. The town spent money on the related infrastructure, then had to raise taxes to pay for it, and now Lancaster is not such a great deal anymore. I would not want to see that in Alabama, sure the jobs and economic boon would be good, I make my living selling to contractors. It's sort of a catch 22, you need to have long-term commitments from the people coming in, and that's tough to get without something being done on our end. I think I'll vote to pass on it, the risk is too great of having a chunk of land tied up with a half finished development, empty or under-utilized hulk buildings and a new expensive 4 lane highway (Route 77) that we'll get stuck paying for. I'm sure there is plenty of room for this somewhere in Genesee County, where the infra-structure is mostly in place.
Bea; not to belittle your opinions, but you can't compare Great Valley or Chesterbrooke to Genesee County. That's a whole different world. I worked both of those areas as a sales person and a trucker. You have millions of people within 100 miles of there, we aren't anywhere close to that. By the way, I love the southern part of Chester County, I just couldn't afford the housing, so we wound up in Cecil County, MD (a lot like Genesee County in some respects).
Dave, there may have been
Dave,
there may have been millions of people, but the developers of Great Valley, in particular, took farm land and developed it hoping to attact a certain industry and did quite well.
But, no matter where that farm is located, be it Genesee Co. in NY, the rolling farmland of Pennsylvania or somewhere in Iowa, there are constants that have to be considered.
While you may have been a salesman who visited the businesses on a regular basis, I worked there every day. I saw the effects of poor planning. Since I lived both in Malvern and then Chesterbrook, they are my points of reference.
On the other hand, I can remember visiting an industrial park, in Indiana, where the primary business was manufactured homes. It was also located on an old farm. The farm house was the corporate office; the barn a corporate meeting place; and circling the main manufacturing plant were the smaller feeder companies that provided interior and exterior components for the homes. I was told that the small companies had contracts to supply the main company first, but they could also wholesale to other outlets.
This was a successful operation, where local people came together to make a company work. I could see this happening here.
It is obvious, the center in Indiana didn't have the traffic problems that I encountered in Pennsylvanis, but they did seem to have their act together as far as planning was concerned.
I see your point, Bea. I
I see your point, Bea. I think we are on the same page about planning for the future possibilities. I think the risk of not getting enough tenants isn't worth the cost of the expense for the infrastructure. And, I am familiar with the traffic; I used to finish picking up freight somewhere in Malvern or K of P at 5 or 6 PM and drive Route 100 to 202 and south to our terminal in Wilmington almost every day for 2 years in a 24 foot box truck. I laugh when people talk about rush hour in Buffalo.
There were 28 of us who were
There were 28 of us who were relocated from WNY to Great Valley. This was a real start up project. The number of businesses in GV could be counted on one hand. No hotels, or other service businesses were there yet. We hired locally for support people. Their first question was where are you from? "New York", was the stock answer. Next question, "How can you stand the traffic?". Well, if you consider three cows in an intersectiion traffic, then it isn't too bad.
That question came back to haunt me when we moved to Chesterbrook. As I mentioned before, it took over a half hour to go the three miles to K o P. Traffic?
The traffic there was 100 times worse than anything here.
I lived on the other side of the valley from Valley Forge Natl. Park, so it wasn't tourist traffic clogging the highway, it was just poor planning.
There still hasn't been any mention of the farmers entertaining the idea of selling their land. It would be interesting to see who they are.