Stockburger proposes office complexBy: DANNY ADLER Bucks County Courier Times
<http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/courier_times/courier_times_news_details/article/28/2009/june/03/stockburger-proposes-office-complex.html>
The plan features a 20,000-square-foot office building and a parking garage.The closing of Stockburger Chevrolet in Newtown could be serendipitous.An ambitious proposal for the former car dealership and the surrounding area appears to match up fairly well with a vision put forthyears ago by the Joint Downtown Newtown Corp., now called Newtown Corp."It's the dawn of a new day," said George Stockburger IV, whose family had run the Chevy dealership in the borough for more than 50years before shuttering in February.Stockburger is teaming up with Allan Smith, a principal and developer of the nearby Stocking Works office complex, and renownedarchitect Robert Hillier.A conceptual plan presented to the Newtown Borough Planning Commission Monday shows an approximately 200,000-square-foot"E"-shaped office with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification about where the vacant dealership stands onSouth State Street.That office building would be three times the size of the Stocking Works.It also calls for the current liquor store, set back from Center Avenue, to be demolished and moved closer to the street. Just south of the state store, the developer would build a parking lot with 75 spaces (an increase from the 56 spaces there now), and a parkinggarage to hold about 600 cars behind that.The garage would be used by the office building's employees on weekdays, while providing much-needed parking to residents andshoppers during nights and weekends, Smith said.The idea is to make the garage - and the other buildings - fit in architecturally with the surrounding buildings in town, he said."You don't want it to look like a sore thumb," he told the newspaper Tuesday while inside his Stocking Works office.Tucked between the parking garage and the office building, the concept calls for a European-style courtyard with cobblestone and afountain at its center.Other parts of the proposal show two smaller retail shops, one with 30 apartments above the stores, and possibly 11 townhouses off Court Street near the Newtown Friends Meetinghouse.Another aspect that matches the Newtown Corp.'s vision of the borough is a walkway along Newtown Creek stretching south fromCenter Avenue.Smith called the location a good place to put the development because workers could easily walk around town to get lunch, shop aftertheir shift or grab a cup of coffee."The idea is, how do you get people downtown without increasing traffic?" he said.Council President Mark Craig, who was on the Joint Downtown Newtown Corp. when it created its vision, said the conceptual plan"incorporates a number of elements from the visioning plan about five years ago."The developers hope to present their concept to the public within the next month or so. But a time and place for that presentation is notset.Stockburger, whose Chrysler dealership in Newtown Township shut its doors weeks after the Chevy lot closed, called the proposal a"fabulous vision for the town" that could help boost the built-out borough's stagnant tax base."We just happened to be at the right place at the right time," he said in a telephone interview Tuesday.Stockburger last fall signaled he was pursuing a possible townhouse development for the site. That plan changed when the family lostthe two car businesses, he said.
Leave a Comment