The Market for Commercial Development in Lansdowne
Recommendations on Increasing the Employment Base
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There are two office buildings currently available in downtown Lansdowne. The first is a 21,000 square foot building on the southwest corner of Lansdowne and Baltimore. It is completely vacant, and is asking $15.50 per square foot. It has central air conditioning, divisible spaces, off-street parking, and easy access to the Lansdowne train station. The realtor’s first choice would be to sell the entire complex (including the adjacent shopping center) to a single user for $3,700,000.
The second is an old Bell Telephone building on Baltimore Avenue. This building will probably be more difficult than the Lansdowne Avenue/Baltimore Pike building, since it is likely that it has environmental hazards. Either of these two sites is appropriately located so that any employees working in them would have easy access to the shopping area at Lansdowne Avenue and Baltimore Pike.
The third development site is not a potential office/employment location, but one that does have the potential to generate additional economic activity in the center of town. It is the movie theatre on Lansdowne Avenue, and the Development Corporation has been involved with it for some time. Several investors/operators have expressed interest in it, but there has been no financial commitment to renovate and reopen it. It is currently on the market, and office space on the second floor is for rent.
Old theaters in inner ring suburbs are such a difficult problem that a national non-profit organization, the League of Historic American Theatres (www.lhat.org) has been formed to address the problem and to assist members with solutions. The LEDC has met with several theatre operators, some of whom feel that they could bring in first run movies and run the theatre as a going business. It is likely that they are right. We were able to identify three active theatres within a five-mile radius (the AMC at the Marple Crossroads Shopping Center, United Artists on MacDade Boulevard, Holmes, PA, and a United Artists at 69th Street in Upper Darby). If the LEDC is not able to find an operator, it may have to consider taking on the theatre as a combination movie house, theatre for live performances, and office space for itself and possibly other non-profits in the community, or preserving the façade and redeveloping the rear.
Finally, several proposals have been put forth as part of the Delaware County Renaissance Program that could have a significant impact on Lansdowne’s commercial areas. The first Renaissance target area is the Baltimore Avenue Corridor, which is the main access road for Lansdowne and its neighbors; revitalizing it could provide a new “gateway” to all of these communities. There has also been a proposal to develop vacant, underutilized industrial space for an office/employment center on Union Avenue, bordering on Upper Darby, and to construct a walkway between it and the Lansdowne Train Station. This could generate additional foot traffic/potential shoppers for the Borough, especially on Baltimore Pike.