After standing vacant for over a decade, will Manor Park Elementary School be redeveloped? If the contract purchaser can get all his approvals from the borough, the site may undergo a redevelopment like 101 Washington Street project but it will take time.
The contract purchaser, Kevin Romano, and its land, presented his vision for the use of the building and land at the previous meeting of the Morrisville Council meeting.
Romano and an attorney at Begley, Carlin and Mandy appeared before Council to discuss the future vision of the site. The attorney offered apologies for not attending previous meetings to discuss the matter. The application may appear confusing but there are a lot of moving pieces especially to the relief they are requesting and he felt appropriate to be at this meeting and discuss the vision, said the attorney.
The school which is on approximately 1.7 acres has remained vacant for over a decade. The building itself is a little over 14,560 square footage. The attorney’s understanding is the school district previously had the site under contract but the deal fell apart because the former proposed developer could not secure financing. The proposal by Romano and the attorney is labeled as a “mixed use commercial building,” similar to the 101 Washington Street building that Romano operates. Speaking of the future plans, the attorney touched on many legal aspects of the application. He said that they have done what they could in the terms of requiring minimal relief.
Credit: Lower Bucks Source
Romano is the owner of 101 Washington St. in Morrisville and the Bach building in Philadelphia. He said, he has been in the development and redevelopment industry for over 20 years, the last six or seven years he has been focused on the creative redevelopment/reuse of existing structures, sometimes homes but mostly businesses.
Romano’s vision is to be similar to 101 Washington St and wants the school site to be part of the community, not a standalone. He has proven to have success in Morrisville and if they are allowed by zoning to have the same structuring of relief that 101 Washington St was granted, then the new site at the former school will also be successful.
The entire purpose of this presentation was to explain their future plans since it is different than most applications to zoning. The attorney wanted the borough to understand the vision going into the application.
The former Manor Park Elementary School in Morrisville was constructed in 1975 and closed in the late 1980s. It was then used for pre-kindergarten programs for many years.
Credit: Lower Bucks Source
Presented by Romano was information on the Bach Building in South Philadelphia. A former high school spanning 350,000 square feet was in worse shape than Manor Park Elementary. It now houses 220 tenants, there is practically no vacancy. To name a few types of businesses within the building are a bar, restaurant, coffee shop, and bike shop.
Speaking on the the 101 Washington St. building that was bought in 2020 or 2021, Romano said, that it houses approximately 26-27 tenants who all have different hours of business. Some of the tenants are a couple photographers, wedding/event planner, tech shop, and several estheticians.
Romano also said, “…Our sort of bread and butter quite frankly is taking buildings that most people don’t really know what to do with and finding a kind of a creative use for them…”
“…For buildings like this to kind of have someone want to breathe life back into them you know it’s a fair amount of risk quite frankly and like to take that risk me or anyone else needs a little bit of flexibility in the zoning….”
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