Business district grows in Warrington Twp.
Valley Square's retail area, which opened last week, is promising area residents a walkable downtown.
Warrington Township leaders are counting on the new Valley Square development, whose central retail district opened last week, to give the sprawling Bucks County suburb its first walkable downtown.
"We have never had a central business area," Warrington Township supervisors' chairman Glenn McKay said. Valley Square's outdoor-mall layout and paths are supposed to encourage walking between the chain stores and restaurants, instead of the car-hopping needed to navigate the bustling Route 611 shopping district that splits the township.
"Valley Square is our first development that has created a sense of community," McKay said.
That wasn't developer Michael Grasso's original choice for the 140-acre section, which includes the site of the former Warrington Motor Lodge and tracts formerly owned by the Tabas family. "They had talked about high-density housing," McKay said.
Under pressure from residents of the adjoining Palomino Farms and Neshaminy Valley neighborhoods, and from taxpayers worried about higher school costs, Grasso and his son David changed their project to the retro Main Street look that has gained favor with builders in other parts of the country.
It's a familiar look to Main Line native David Grasso. "We're creating a new Jenkintown, a new Doylestown, a new Narberth with boutiques," he said. He wants Valley Square to recall Ardmore's Suburban Square, with its angled parking and open plazas. For retailers, Grasso said, it's "25 percent cheaper" than being in an enclosed mall, where tenants have to pay shared costs for heat, cooling, light and security.
The Grassos' larger plan includes a mix of mature-adult housing developments and big-box stores (including a Wegman's supermarket that opened last fall), along with the $120 million retail center, whose 50 stores include Ann Taylor, Borders, Eastern Mountain Sports, and Banana Republic, next to chain restaurants like Panera Bread, Starbucks and Chipotle Grill. Above the stores are medical, insurance and other service offices.
Valley Square has 300,000 square feet of retail space and 125,000 square feet of office space.
Grasso said he wants to duplicate the look at sites in South Jersey and the Lehigh Valley. His firm, Grasso Holdings, is responsible for condo projects such as the Lofts at Bella Vista and the Packard Grande in Philadelphia, and The Highline on 10th Avenue in New York, among others. Grasso has also collected private and public investors for a proposed Whole Foods, Best Buy, hotel and apartment development planned for 16th and Vine streets in Center City.
The Warrington development is walkable once you get there, but it's still hard to access Valley Square on foot from nearby residential areas, which were built for the automobile age.
"I think we can get around that," McKay said. "They have some dead-end streets that could be good places to start the paths" leading into and out of Valley Square.