But it’s no movie: North Penn’s school board has started talks on selling their "movie lots,” a batch of properties in Hatfield they’ll need to decide what to do with.
"We’re going to have discussions about what that process would look like, if we were going to sell that property,” said Superintendent Todd Bauer.
In recent years, district staff and the board have hinted at talks about the movie lots, a group of parcels accumulated by the district over the years, most recently in spring 2022 after the district obtained the former WNPV Radio property adjacent to North Penn High School in Towamencin in summer 2020.
During the board’s March 12 finance committee meeting, Bauer and district CFO Steve Skrocki took to the big screen — a projector and poster in the board’s meeting room, not a movie screen — to summarize what they’ve found in district archives about those lots, and what they’d like the board to do next.
"North Penn School District owns a significant property, kinda in the neighborhood of Welsh and Forty Foot Road,” Bauer said, as Skrocki showed an aerial photo of the area. The properties are zoned residential, total about 56 acres, and the district has been approached roughly "half a dozen times over the years” about whether they’d be interested in selling.
"We explored the option of moving our transportation center there, but it is not zoned properly for that, and quite frankly the infrastructure does not exist to have buses coming in and out of there,” Bauer said, for moving the district’s bus garage, dispatch center, propane fuel station and parking for roughly 100 school buses there. The total size is "more appropriate for an elementary school, it’s not a high school or middle school” that would need large athletic fields and parking, the superintendent said, prompting a wry question from finance committee chairman Christian Fusco.
"So, no second high school there?” Fusco said, and Bauer answered "No.”
District enrollment projections don’t indicate any large population increase that would call for another elementary school, the superintendent told the board, before handing off to Skrocki to summarize what he’s learned so far, and next steps the board could take. On the northeast corner of the intersection of Welsh and Forty Foot, Skrocki said, just north of a shopping center on that corner, construction is currently underway for developer Pulte Group’s "Del Webb North Penn” development that Hatfield Township officials approved in 2019-20.
Just east of that 55-and-over community is a separate batch of movie lots that is "either owned directly, or the equitable owners are Pulte Homes as well,” Skrocki said. Hatfield Township staff said this week that the Del Webb project is roughly 50 percent complete, and Pulte has submitted a conditional use application proposing to build single-family homes on roughly 42 acres adjacent to the project now under construction
Just south of that parcel, between a cul-de-sac development off of Vernon Court, west of Orvilla north of Welsh, sit the district’s movie lots, visible on aerial photos as a cleared plot shaped roughly like a shield, below a rectangular cleared plot that’s the site of the Pulte plans.
"This is tillable soil here. We actually lease this to a farmer: we have an annual lease, for a small amount of money,” roughly $2,500 per year, Skrocki said.
Where did the term "Movie lots” come from? Based on district research and MediaNews Group archives, the properties were small parcels, often in strips roughly 100 feet by 20 feet, given away by movie theaters as far back as the 1920s, as prizes for those attending movies.
"The way the movie companies were spinning it was, ‘We’re giving away these parcels, and you can develop it as your country retreat, to build a cabin on it,'” Skrocki said.
"There’s a couple of problems with that: there were no streets that were ever developed, there were no survey markers, so people didn’t really know exactly where their property actually was, and quite frankly they were too small to build anything on them. So at the end of the day, they really weren’t worth anything, it was a marketing ploy,” he said. "A 20-by-100 parcel doesn’t get you very much to build on, not even a small, cozy country retreat.”
As he presented to the board, the CFO showed an enlarged map of the lots, with dozens of small parcel lines crisscrossed by paper streets that exist only on plans, and small carve-outs where lots are owned by either Hatfield Township or private holders. District searches have found maps from the early 2000s showing seven properties owned privately, six by Hatfield Township, and 133 contiguous parcels owned by the district, largely obtained through tax or sheriff sales over the years, for a total acquisition price of just under $80,000.
"Individuals that were holding onto these useless properties, I think when they realized they weren’t worth anything, and they couldn’t develop it — they stopped paying taxes on it. Because they were subject to real estate taxes, they figured the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, I’m not going to pay real estate taxes on it,” Skrocki said.
District records also show donations and a major trade in 1993 of roughly 180 parcels, exchanging some of the land next to the current Pulte development that the builder is eyeing now, and those the district now owns, with a goal in mind.
"It was clear, in the documents I was able to find, that the intent of the school district and the school board at that time was to try to get as many contiguous properties, movie lots, as possible. It made sense: one movie lot is worth nothing, 50 or 100 or 150 combined together, in pretty contiguous area, could mean a development,” he said.
Why? "That effort was really for consideration of putting a school there. I couldn’t find out if it was going to be an elementary, a middle school, it’s not large enough for a high school. At some point, circa 1996, it appears that idea was abandoned. I don’t know why,” Skrocki said.
That land is currently zoned residential, similar to the residential zoning Towamencin Township changed in February for the campus of North Penn High School to change setback and runoff requirements as they discuss renovating and reconfiguring that property. Out of the 56 acres, roughly 38 acres are leased to the farmer, in a contract approved annually.
Skrocki said the district has looked at roughly 30 sites for a potential transportation move, and ruled out the movie lots because of the underlying zoning, and the challenges of adding infrastructure, enhancing access to Welsh and Orvilla, and securing the zoning change. The state’s school code allows several ways for a district to sell land: after public discussions, a sale can be done by auction, by sealed bids, or by private sale, and Skrocki said the latter is their recommendation.
"We think the potential to maximize the benefit for the school district, is through a private sale, negotiating with one or more developers,” he said.
Steps before doing so would include a finding that the property is unused and unnecessary, which Skrocki said the district can now deciare: "Right now, there’s no plans for the land,” with no long-term need for another school and a decision not to use it for the transportation center becoming clear. The district would then need to formally notify Hatfield Township and the Montgomery County Planning Commission that they intend to sell, then negotiate an agreement of sale, and obtain two appraisal reports or affidavits of value.
If the board approves the sale agreement, the district would then file that petition with the county’s Court of Common Pleas, and a judge would conduct a hearing on the sale. During that hearing, two persons could provide an affidavit or opinion of value, or the district could present written reports: "We feel the report just has more credibility,” Skrocki said, and would provide a data point for whether the district should sell.
"Quite frankly, if we’re not able to generate interest for a sales price that is at or above the appraisal, we’re not going to make a recommendation to you to sell the property. It’s that simple. It needs to be at, or higher than, the appraisal amount,” Skrocki said.
State codes require that the proceeds from that sale must be used for debt service or capital expenditures, "and this is perfect timing,” Skrocki said: with the $200-million-plus high school renovations now being planned, and talks underway on a new site for the transportation center, those proceeds could go toward either.
District files also indicated that in 2006, a concept plan considered developing the movie lot site for an alternative school, a maintenance department, a warehouse, and a bus maintenance building, none of which happened: in 2008, the district acquired and moved into a warehouse on Eighth Street in Lansdale for support service offices, and converted an industrial building on North Penn Road in Hatfield into the Northbridge School.
"So, those plans for site development were abandoned in 2006, and the district went with acquisition instead. From what I can derive from the archives, since 2006 it’s just been shelved. Nearly 20 years, nothing has really happened with those movie lots,” he said.
Residential development could raise concerns about traffic, access, runoff and other issues, and any such developer would need to go through land development approvals with the township and its consultants if the district does sell, he said. The immediate request from staff is for the board to direct administration "to take all the steps necessary to pursue the sale,” including speaking with developers and seeking appraisals.
Bauer added that in addition to the high school renovations and transportation move, the district also maintains a long-term capital list of smaller infrastructure upgrades needed across all buildings, which is discussed monthly by the board’s facilities and operations committee and is currently over $190 million in needs.
"We just really believe it’s the responsible and prudent thing to explore this, and come back to the board with a value of this, and what we might be able to get,” he said.
"We do not anticipate using that property. We were holding out hope that it may be for transportation, but that’s just not in the cards,” Bauer said.
Board member Tim MacBain said his family lives on a similar movie lot, and thought "it would be foolish if we didn’t understand what the property was worth.” Fusco added that he heard a frequent concern ahead of the high school funding referendum in January that the district should look to find other sources of revenue.
"If we can find some revenue here, to put toward those capital projects, that it is a good and prudent use of your time, energy and district resources,” he said.
In 2022 the board held brief talks on properties they own across the district, and referenced the WNPV site, the movie lots, and a parcel adjacent to Montgomery Elementary School; that land was donated roughly ten years ago, and "can’t be used for much” and would likely have little market value, Skrocki said.
The finance committee voted unanimously to direct staff to begin the process, and a motion to do so could be on the full board’s agenda when they meet on March 21. North Penn’s school board next meets at 7 p.m. on March 21 at the district Educational Services Center, 401 E. Hancock Street; for more information visit www.NPenn.org.
See also:
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North Penn High School Students Give Back to the Community with Free Food Fest
North Penn Reports on High School Youth Aid Panels
North Penn Educational Foundation Seeking Donations for Online Auction
North Penn New ‘Chief Academic Officer’ Post Created
