Bellefonte Borough Council this week unanimously approved a private developer’s new designs for the long-delayed Waterfront project, which has been in the works for nearly seven years.
Originally planned to be three buildings, the development group led by Tom Songer reduced the scope of the project to two buildings last year.
The first building, at the corner of High and Dunlop streets, will be a national brand boutique hotel with 93 guest rooms. The 75-feet-tall building will have a first-floor, farm-to-table restaurant that will also offer a “rooftop experience.”
Building 2 will include residential condominiums, ground-level commercial space and a parking facility with 268 spaces.
Gina Thompson, Bellefonte Historic Architectural Review Board zoning and planning administrator, told council that the developers were asked to update the design of the second building “to have it better match the historic aesthetic that they had done so well with the hotel.” Revised designs were presented to the HARB in December and February, and the board “was very impressed,” Thompson said.
Wrought iron railings and window frames will be changed from white to black, which council member Joanne Tosti-Vasey said is intended to match the look of the black wrought iron throughout the historic downtown.
“It just didn’t look like it quite fit in with the ambience of Bellefonte,” Tosti-Vasey said.
Updates to the design of the first building will add Juliet balconies on the Dunlop Street, High Street and creekside entrances, remove a second-floor walkout and add corbels to the High Street side clock face.
Because the property is in Bellefonte’s historic district, borough council has final say on designs. But the approval represents just one of several steps that must occur before construction begins.
The developers will next bring a lot consolidation to the borough planning commission, followed by a final land development plan, a process that Thompson said could “take a few months.”
The movement comes after council members have expressed frustration with the continued delays for the project that borough officials have long believed would be an economic boon.
In 2018, Songer and hotel partner Mark Morath unveiled the initial plans for the project on the former site of the historic Bush House, which burned down in 2006. The group finalized the acquisition of the property from the Bellefonte Area Industrial Development Authority in 2019, the year they had originally hoped to start construction.
That turned into 2020, and following the impacts of COVID and inflation, 2022, as the developers continued to pursue state grants and adjust the project.
At a meeting in February, a council passed a resolution that, in part, said it “strongly encourages the owners to break ground on this long anticipated economic development project as soon as possible.”
Council also discussed putting some kind of time limit on when construction needed to begin.
“They’re wasting our time and I don’t like the design of the buildings,” council member Shawna McKean said in February, before the new designs were presented. “It sounds like it’s more of a private enterprise than really benefiting the borough.”
Tosti-Vasey also suggested that the borough could threaten to stop mowing the property if ground wasn’t broken by next summer, requiring the owners to maintain it in accordance with borough code.
In response to both comments, Borough Manager Ralph Stewart pointed out that the development group owns the property and the borough has no authority to force it to begin construction. If it were to stop mowing the land, which has become an open field the developers allow the public to use, the owners could place a fence around it.
While no construction start date has been set, the recent progress has made Thompson and others optimistic.
“I think they are hoping to start the project soon,” Thompson said.
