Thursday night in Limerick at the Sanatoga Springs hearing.

Thursday night in Limerick at the Sanatoga Springs hearing.

LIMERICK PA – Vicki Hernandez remembers – and doesn’t want to see repeated – the nightmare of more than a year ago, when cars clogged a narrow portion of Lightcap Road as their drivers steered toward discounts at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets. Don’t get her wrong: Hernandez welcomes the retailers, even new ones coming to the proposed Sanatoga Springs complex. She just hopes their traffic isn’t continually passing her home’s front steps.

Which, it turns out, might have more to do with GPS devices than highway design.

Hernandez was the only member of the public to comment Thursday (Jan. 22, 2009) at a hearing held by the township Board of Supervisors on conditional use of 60 acres at Lightcap and Evergreen Roads. If approved, the property is destined to become Sanatoga Springs. Before a packed house at the township municipal building, 646 W. Ridge Pike, the board accepted testimony from Hernandez and proponents, and said it would make a decision in 45 days.

A court stenographer was on hand to create an official transcript of the hearing.

A court stenographer was on hand to create an official transcript of the hearing.

Representatives of Sanatoga Springs developer O’Neill Properties Group spoke at length and answered board members’ questions. The township’s traffic engineer offered suggestions on automobile routing and signaling, which prompted Hernandez to speak. Other than that, the hearing was notable both for its silence in the presence of several dozen people, and for the fact that national wholesaler Costco was confirmed as anchor tenant for the development’s first phase.

Among those in the audience were Lower Pottsgrove Commissioner Anthony Doyle, and former Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners‘ President Tom Troutman.

O’Neill proposes to build Sanatoga Springs on the southeast side of the U.S. Route 422 interchange at Sanatoga, immediately east of the outlets. Bordered by 422 and Lightcap and Evergreen Roads, it would include Costco in a store of 148,000 square feet; four smaller store or restaurant sites of between 10,000 and 17,000 square feet each, and a bank of 3,500 square feet. Surrounding parking lots would accommodate several hundred cars.

The plans presented Tuesday constitute only an opening stage of the project, closest to 422 on about a third of its total acreage. Second and third phases, which were displayed but not discussed during the hearing, involve a second shopping area of a smaller anchor tenant and adjacent stores, and a residential area of several three-story multiple-unit buildings, respectively. Separate hearings will be required for those phases, township Solicitor Joseph McGrory noted.

The outlets next door opened on 78 acres in November 2007. Traffic to them has, at times, slowed to a crawl on 422 and feeder roads like Lightcap. Hernandez didn’t oppose the retail businesses that attract shoppers; they’re “good for the township” and its economy, she said. She worried, though, that the township wasn’t doing enough to re-direct drivers who rely on global positioning satellite (GPS) devices to reach the area by exiting 422 at Sanatoga.

It’s easier said than done, township Manager Daniel Kerr said. He’s checked with map-makers and others whose information is fed to in-car GPS units from satellites circling high above the equator in space. Their wizard-like technology can, and does, properly direct traffic east on 422 to Sanatoga, and then from the interchange to Lightcap, Kerr said, but only if software is updated on individual units. That’s a driver’s responsibility, he noted.

Most of the formal and highly structured hearing consisted of pleasant, and sometimes intentionally funny, exchanges between McGrory and O’Neill’s legal counsel.

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