A “Coming soon” sign shows a rendering of possible development within a long-vacant shopping center on Forty Foot Road in Towamencin on Wednesday, June 4, 2025. Photo by Dan Sokil | The Reporter.
Supervisors vote ahead waivers for shopping center pad sites
A series of pad sites in front of a long-vacant Towamencin shopping center has prompted another round of debate.
Township officials heard details on a long list of waiver requests sought by developer PSDC, and plenty of questions from residents about when they’ll see that shopping center revived.
“That shopping center sits there empty. And now, to be asked to allow them to build seven more locations, is insane. We’d have to be crazy to allow this,” said resident Laurie Morrissey.
At Forty Foot and Allentown Roads, PSDC has proposed plans to revive the former Towamencin Village Shopping Center since the early 2010s, with an entertainment lifestyle overlay district approved in 2016 amid promises of new tenants that at times have included Whole Foods inside a former grocery space, a new Target behind the center, new tenants including Harbor Freight, and a new building housing a Chipotle restaurant and Mattress Warehouse shop on a pad site adjacent to the center.
An empty shell of a building stands next to new facades on vacant storefronts in the former Towamencin Village Shopping Center, as seen on Tuesday, Feb. 27 2024.An earlier version of those plans shown in 2018 included age-restricted apartments behind the shopping center, and in 2022 the developer said they had seen little interest from the market for age-restricted housing, thus a request this June for a new plan for apartments with no age restriction.
During the Aug. 27 supervisors meeting, attorney Ed Hughes and engineer Matt Landro outlined the developer’s latest requests: to build on four pad sites between Forty Foot and the SKF building, remove aboveground stormwater basins and add underwater retention, and build the long-discussed driveway and signal on Forty Foot at Newbury Way.
Uses for the pad sites could include a restaurant with outdoor seating, a retail store, restaurants with drive-throughs and a bank with a drive-through, the two told the board.
“We’re going to go through, probably in painstaking detail, the numerous waivers that are required, mostly engineering issues,” Hughes said.
Construction fencing can be seen around a pad site where a proposed Chipotle and Mattress Warehouse could be built in the former Towamencin Village Shopping Center, as seen on Tuesday, Feb. 27 2024.Landro showed the latest proposal from PSDC and outlined the requests, which he termed “borderline de minimis, mostly engineering minutia” requiring board approval. A long-discussed Chipotle restaurant and mattress store on a pad site at the center are now open, a Harbor Freight shop there slated to open “relatively shortly,” and the new pad site developments proposed “to connect that frontage to the SKF building,” Landro said. No specific users have been identified for the pad sites, and preliminary approval from the supervisors would “enhance the marketability, so we can hopefully secure tenants” for those pads, then come back with plans for signage and specific buildings for each site, the engineer said.
Site plan showing a proposed development of four pad sites along Forty Foot Road, at bottom, with a new driveway running from Forty Foot across from Newbury Way, right center, as presented during the Aug. 26, 2025 Towamencin supervisors meeting. (Screenshot of meeting video)“The combination of uses here would be retail, a bank, drive through restaurant, quick service restaurant, and traditional retail space. So any combination of those would be proposed, and this plan represents one way of doing that,” Landro said.
Most of the waivers have to do with materials and dimensions of the underground stormwater storage, the engineer outlined to the board, with no changes planned to the SKF building and only a “minor encroachment” into the SKF parking lot in order to connect to the signal at Forty Foot and Newbury Way.
“We do have a robust stormwater management design, that is currently under review” by Montgomery County officials, Landro said.
Residents sound off
After hearing the list, supervisor Chuck Wilson made a motion to direct staff to prepare a resolution granting preliminary approval with those waivers granted, before Supervisors chairwoman Joyce Snyder opened the floor for public comments.
Morrissey asked when residents would see more development in what she called the “ghost town shopping center,” including on the pad sites already built: “There are two vacant pads that sit there, and maybe they’re not pretty and new, but I’m sure they could be renovated for new tenants.”
Nancy Ness agreed the shopping center should be a higher priority than new pads: “All those stores that have been closed forever, and you’re going to take a strip that’s green, and nice, and just put more stuff in there? It’s so weird,” she said. Bruce Bailey said he was “totally against” any underground stormwater features, citing worries about future upkeep.
“50 years from now, or 70 years from now, that’s going to be some other person’s problem as they cave in,” he said.
Leon Kashishian asked how long PSDC had owned the properties, and the attorney and engineer said they didn’t have that info; the resident then asked if the newest plans included a new traffic signal near the entrance to the Planet Fitness on Allentown Road at Thorndale Drive, and Landro said that’s not part of the current plan. The resident then asked why the focus on the pad sites instead of the rest of the center, and Hughes answered that the pads could create enough traffic for larger tenants.
“We believe that doing this will help fill the shopping center. We’ve gotten approval for improvements to the shopping center, we’re working as we speak — this is part of the overall concept,” Hughes said. “We believe this will help us do that. Maybe not, but that’s our goal.”
Alan Shughart said he had two issues: the number of waivers requested, and the track record of the developer.
“If any one of us wanted to build something, there is no way you would approve 20 waivers for a garage, or an outbuilding. And with the history of PSDC, why are we bending over for them when they have empty, vacant lots all over this township?” he said.
Supervisor Amer Barghouth asked for details on next steps, and Wilson said the first vote would direct township staff to prepare a resolution of preliminary plan approval, including the waiver list, then more presentations would come from the developer before any final plan approval.
“This just kicks the ball down to the next step,” he said.
The board then voted four-to-one in favor of preparing the preliminary approval resolution, with Barghouth casting the only vote against.
Towamencin’s supervisors next meet at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 10 and 24 at the township administration building, 1090 Troxel Rd. For more information visit www.Towamencin.org.
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