On Oct. 21,2024, about 55 people attended the presentation by Mark Evans of Derck & Edson, the Borough’s planning consultant, in-person at the Collegeville Firehouse and via Zoom. Here is the Main Street Master Plan Final Report that was presented. Below is a brief overview and relevant Qs and As from the attendees.
The Main Street Plan: A Vision Document
Collegeville Borough’s Main Street Master Plan acts as a vision document for Collegeville’s future; It is not set in stone. The Plan preserves our small-town look and feel, provides options for parking, a trail connection, traffic calming, a town square meeting place, and more.
The purpose of this Plan is to encourage the building of a small-town walkable Main Street. It reflects best practice planning principles and provides guidance for developers, businesses and others when they begin renovating the infrastructure, building new buildings, and adapting and reusing existing buildings. The plan is flexible, and can be changed when needed due to engineering issues, such as placement of utilities, or dealing with rights-of-ways.
The plan is the result of the effort of many experts over the last 1½ years. It includes input from the professionals of the Montgomery County Planning Commission, the Collegeville Planning Commission, our Borough Engineer, and a Main Street Steering Committee comprised of Collegeville building and business owners, investors, developers, residents, Ursinus College and Borough Council members. It is hoped that the end result of the plan will be the creation of an attractive, walkable Collegeville Main Street which appeals to destination retail and restaurant businesses.
Having a plan for our Main Street also helps our Borough to get grants, and provides guidance on what we should be working on over time. For example, our Planning Commission has developed new zoning that will help attract developers and businesses to our Main Street. The plan recommends that we finalize this new zoning during 2025. Then during the next several years, the plan recommends that we apply for grants for our infrastructure, including an enhanced streetscape, crosswalks, sidewalks, on-street parking, and lighting. We also will be working on attracting new businesses and hope to complete the Bum Hollow Perkiomen trail connection to Main Street.
Q&A
Here are the questions (edited for clarity and brevity) asked by the residents at the meeting following the review of the Master Plan, and answers provided by presenter Mark Evans and Borough officials.
Q. (Unidentified Resident) – What is going to happen with the land behind the Marzella’s parking lot on W. Fifth Ave.?
A. Currently there are no specific plans for that area. (The Fifth Ave. and Main Street intersection) where Main Street connects to the campus falls under different Borough zoning called the “College Gateway Overlay.” It isn’t included in the Main Street Master Plan.
Q. Bill Hollister, Glenwood Ave. – Glenwood Ave. (map it) is very narrow, and can’t handle the traffic from the proposed parking lot on land that the College owns near the monument between Glenwood and Clamer Ave. How can you (move forward with the plan) before these types of issues are addressed?
A. The Masonic Temple parking lot and the land near the monument owned by the College have been identified in the Master Plan as having the potential for a large parking lot for the 400 block of Main Street.
The plan acts as our vision for Main Street; it is the responsibility of the developer to complete all the infrastructure studies and requirements. The developer would need to first have the land surveyed to see what utilities and boundary issues impact the space. If the land was then found suitable for a parking lot, the developer would need to negotiate an agreement for sale from the owners.
They would then have to get approval for their design plans, comply with standards for lighting and landscaping to screen the lot from the neighbors, provide for stormwater management, and discuss the project with the neighbors. Importantly, to your point, they would also need to complete traffic studies on the effect of the additional traffic on both Glenwood and Clamer Aves.
These details are all part of the development plan that must be submitted, reviewed and approved by the Borough Engineer, the Montgomery County Planning Commission, the Borough’s Planning Commission, and the Borough Council before the project could move forward.
This is a long process that can take a year or more.
Q. Jane Deitrick and Russell Hunsberger, Main St. – You want to widen the sidewalks. What happens to the people who live on Main St. and their property? You will have to take away some of my property. I have been living here since 1985. We don’t want (this plan.) I don’t have that much property now. We don’t want the sidewalk and the street trees (from the proposed streetscape.) All the trees are dead from the revitalization (PennDOT) did in the 300 block years ago*. Of the people who want this plan, more than 60% don’t live on Main St. This plan is not affecting them. People will be on my property, walking their dogs. Even though it will look prettier, it is probably not going to work. What is this going to do to my property taxes?
Have you thought about the traffic, the noise, the crime? Who is going to maintain our street trees? Rake the leaves? Are you guys going to come out and do it? We (would be) paying for this.
(The Borough should) fix up what you have. Since you will be getting $4 million in grants, why don’t you fix up the Perkiomen Bridge Hotel? You have let that building go to hell, and you have done nothing. And now it is falling down.
* A few trees died or were cut down.
A. If the Main Street Master Plan recommendations for the streetscape are followed, the downside is that it would reduce all the front yards on the 400 block of Main Street by (as much as) nine feet. But the upside is that the 5 ft green verge, which can be planted with street trees, increases pedestrian safety by moving pedestrians further away from the traffic.
The wider sidewalks allow two people to walk together side by side or individuals to more easily pass each other. The verges, plus the addition of on-street parking, results in the placement of two-ton vehicles between pedestrians and the traffic. Other improvements that slow the traffic and are recommended by the Plan are curb bump outs and crosswalks, especially with flashing lights. All of these features work together to slow the traffic, improve pedestrian safety for Main Street, and create a better quality-of-life for all Main Street residents.
Please keep in mind that the Main Street Master Plan acts as our vision for Main Street. It is a general plan for us to follow. It isn’t a construction plan with exact standards that must be followed. It reflects the current best practices for planning new Main Streets. Changes can be made to the plan if it is better for the community.
The Perkiomen Bridge Hotel
Regarding the Perkiomen Bridge Hotel, it is privately owned, and the owner has received his own $1M grant to revitalize the hotel. The Borough has filed an injunction against him for doing nothing to stop the deterioration of his blighted property. You can read more about the hotel and the work that the borough has done in the post Statement and Q’s and A’s on the Perkiomen Bridge Hotel.
Q. Tom Dempsey, 22-year Collegeville resident – Are you looking to attract more people (to Main St.?) The traffic on Main St. is already really bad. So it is almost like a contradiction—you bring in more people, then you have more cars, and more traffic on Main St. But you want (your Main St.) to be beautiful, and you want people to walk around. It seems like we are talking about 84,000 cars? Can we get that number down to 40,000? You are still going to get big trucks going down the street.
A. Right now, our residents are leaving Collegeville to shop and dine in restaurants in other towns. Our focus is to create a thriving Main Street that allows our residents to make a short drive or to walk to dining and shopping. To handle the traffic, you need to upgrade the infrastructure so it addresses pedestrian and vehicular safety, provides convenient parking, and creates traffic calming to slow the traffic when and where applicable.
This Main Street Master Plan presents a policy choice for Collegeville’s future on how you want your town to evolve. The plan we are presenting today provides best practices revitalization changes for our borough to be walkable and welcoming.
Finally, the latest PennDOT traffic count for Collegeville’s Main St. is 11,000 vehicles a day.
Q. Unidentified resident – The goal is not to attract more cars. It is to capture those residents who are here now.
A. Yes. We want to attract the 12,000 people who live within 5 minutes of Collegeville’s Main Street, and the 5,500 trail users to find what they are looking for on our Main Street when they are here or passing through.
Q. Jeanette Korenkiewicz – The light at Second Ave. and Main Street is a problem. I’ve had to cross the street without the crosswalk because I can wait for 10 minutes and the light never changes. The same thing happens at Third Ave and Main Street. I come out of Troubles End and have to wait through three light rotations (to get a signal). It is great for you to create bump outs and crosswalks, but you first need for the lights at the intersections to actually work.
A. Tamara Twardowski, Collegeville Borough Manager – The borough owns the traffic signals, but PennDOT controls the timing and tells us what we can and can’t do with them. We know that the traffic signals are problematic. We have spent over $70,000 trying to fix bad controllers and bad parts. Those lights have 10-year-old timing software that is nearing its end of life.
One of the problems the Borough has is that the goal of PennDOT is to keep the traffic moving up Ridge Pike. But we have a lot of cross streets and a trail crossing. The traffic from the cross-streets and constant crossings from the trail doesn’t work well together with the PennDOT timings. We are trying to get the needed adjustments done and to fix these issues. Fortunately, last month—September—we did receive a grant toward updating the lights.
Q. Jeanette Korenkiewicz – How are you advertising these meetings? Nobody knows about them. Going forward, meetings like this need to be advertised more to get the word out to the community. Information should be mailed to residents.
A. The Borough publishes a monthly e-newsletter. All of the work that the Borough Council is doing, the results of each meeting and details on all the upcoming meetings, are included there. Also, all the back issues of the newsletter as well as the sign-up for it are available in the Email Campaign Archive on the Borough of Collegeville website
We also post our meetings on the park sign at Third and Park Avenues. And of course, everyone is invited to attend the Borough Council meetings, which are on the first Wednesday of every month at 6:30 p.m. at Borough Hall. We have a Zoom option for all of our meetings so you don’t have to attend in person. As a rule, we don’t mail paper notices about our meetings anymore because it is a slow, expensive process and a lot of people don’t read their mail.
Q. Tom Dempsey – Is there something that says they can move telephone poles back 20 or 25 feet?
A. Mark Evans, presenter – In general, we are looking at a streetscape that places a green verge that is 5 ft next to the curb and then a sidewalk that is 9 feet. (Ideally) you would locate the street trees and utilities, including fire hydrants, in the 5 ft verge. Currently the poles and fire hydrants are on the sidewalks.
Regarding telephone poles: To move the poles behind the buildings on Main Street would cost millions of dollars.
Q Bill Hollister – I am trying to understand the process. Will our concerns be published?
A. Your questions from this meeting will be published in the Borough’s November newsletter and on the Borough and CEDC website.
Q Bill Hollister – It feels like Ursinus College profits because it owns many of the buildings on the 400 block. So a lot of private property is the beneficiary. This feels like an Ursinus project and the rest of the borough is left out of this.
A. Regarding who benefits from the $3.5M in grants that the Borough received from the PA Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP), the answer is that everyone in Collegeville Borough will benefit. Our goal is to create a viable commercial Main Street on the 400 block of Main Street. The money does not belong to the taxpayers, and it doesn’t matter who owns the buildings; the money can be used for any project approved by the PA Redevelopment Office which creates jobs and can be shown to stimulate the local economy.
Our overall vision is to create an active, two-block-long walkable, old fashioned Main Street with enough commercial businesses to attract additional restaurants and retail. The street connects on one end to the Collegeville Shopping Center and on the other end to Ursinus College.
Q. Unidentified Resident – I know that Main Street/Ridge Pike is a PennDOT-owned road, but with the concern over taking people’s private property, is there a way to build out, so that the five feet needed for the green verge could come from the existing roadway? Can you narrow the road?
A. Tamara Twardowski, Borough Manager – No. Concerning the width of Main Street, PennDOT has minimum requirements for roadways. There is an ultimate chance that the width is actually much wider than is paved. It is a 60 ft ultimate right-of-way. We talk about these issues in our monthly Streets and Public Safety meetings and have been applying for grants, including for sidewalks. There are always a lot of issues at play, and we try to take everything into consideration. If you have concerns please come to our meetings. Call the Borough Office at (610) 489 9208 or check the calendar on the Borough’s website for the meeting time and date.
Q. Jan Snovel – I live a block away from Main Street. I’m a senior citizen and am looking forward to a walkable Main Street. I would like to thank everybody who has been working on this. I think it is wonderful.
A. Thank you. Positive feedback is appreciated.
Q. Unidentified resident – (At) the corner of Clamer Ave. and Main Street (map it) where I live, we have had three cars land in our front yards in the years I have lived there. Something to consider is when you put a pedestrian crossing at the top of a street where visibility is limited, maybe you should also put a flashing light there.
A. A pedestrian and trail crossing consisting of bump outs and markings is on the plan for this intersection as well as for Glenwood and Fourth Ave. (see slide 36 below). A pedestrian activated flashing light will be explored for this intersection as the trail connection via Clamer Ave proceeds.
Q. Robert Botti – I lived for a time in State College where College Ave., located directly in front of Penn State University, is Main Street. It has businesses and restaurants right up against the sidewalk and on street parking. When you are walking on the sidewalk you are protected from the traffic by the parked cars. College Ave. also has stop lights every block which keeps vehicle speeds in check, and the intersections have pedestrian markings and hand/man signals.
Collegeville’s Main Street already has some safety features similar to College Ave. We have lights with pedestrian signals at Ninth, Sixth, Fifth and Third Aves. We also have mid-block crossings with bump outs in the 300 block and in front of the Ursinus campus—the latter with a pedestrian activated flashing light.
The Main Street Master Plan shows a pedestrian and bike trail crosswalk located at the corner of Clamer Ave. and Main Street where there will be a trail connection. A mid-block crosswalk with a pedestrian activated flashing light here as well, will add to the visibility of the crosswalk.
The traffic lights, the flashing lights at crosswalks, and the parked cars along the street which narrow the lanes—all these elements work together to keep traffic speeds in check and make it safer for pedestrians. We have much of this now, we just need to fill in the rest.
Q Sam Smith – I own property on Main Street. Years ago, we had a really wonderful rebuild in the 300 Block. Instead of having another six years of discussion, why can’t we just extend the same rebuild from Fourth to Fifth Avenues. There should already be design criteria somewhere for the 300 block.
A. Cathy Kernen – That streetscape for the 300 block was a grant from PennDOT when they “straightened the dogleg” about 20 years ago. The Borough has been applying for similar grants for years for the 400 block. The PennDOT grant was just for the streetscape: the sidewalks, decorative street lamps, street trees, crosswalks, bump outs and landscaping. Unlike the 400 block, the 300 block already had businesses built right up to the sidewalk.
In addition to the streetscape, our Main Street Master Plan includes principles to follow for the design of the street including the height and mass of buildings, recommended setbacks, building adaptive reuse, standards for infill new builds, and adding in amenities like access to the Perkiomen Trail, and a “town square.” Having a completed plan also gives us a leg up when applying for future county and state grants.
