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Developer
Robert Ruggio, principal in the 202 Group, told a council
meeting on Sept. 12 that had competed purchase of the property
from the estate of the late John Rollins that afternoon. He did
not disclose the purchase price.
The 107
acre parcel lies along Naamans just east of the Brandywine Town
Center and west of the Concord High School campus. Lawyer
William Rhodunda said the intention is to put up 100 to 105
single-family houses that are expected to sell for $500,000.
The land, which along with the Town Center formerly comprised
Brandywine Raceway, a Rollins
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enterprise, is correctly zoned
to permit that.
Unlike the development of the Town
Center, Rhodunda said this project, now in "a very preliminary
stage," will proceed in full collaboration with the council and
neighboring communities. The council fought a long and bitter,
albeit losing, battle with Rollins interests in an effort to
block the Town Center project.
The Ruggio-Rhodunda presentation
sparked a few questions, but no indication of opposition.
"We will put a quality development
in your area which you can be proud of," Ruggio promised.
He said that Astra Zeneca, which is
expanding
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This
stormwater retention pond is being considered as a
recreational amenity for the planned new development next
to Brandywine Town Center. |
its corporate headquarters complex
opposite Fairfax, is "desperate for housing in that [price]
range in Brandywine Hundred" to provide for upper-level
personnel being transferred from Pennsylvania to the Delaware
complex now under
construction
Neither
presenter offered a prospective timetable for the project.
The
development does not yet have a name.
Ruggio
said a feature will be the transformation of an existing
stormwater retention pond situated between the State Police
substation and the child-care center on the Town Center property
into "an active- and passive-recreation" area for the new
community. He spoke of walking paths and bird watching as
activities and the possible construction of an ornamental
fountain in the pond.
The pond
is large enough to continue to serve the commercial complex as
well as the new community, he said. It is presently surrounded
by a fence but poorly maintained, he said.
There is
also another area of the property which consists of wetland and
which also will be retained as open space.
Unlike
most parcels, this one comes to his organization with dedicated
open space amounting to about half the land area.
Ruggio
said one of 10 potential builders now being consulted about
doing the job has proposed that it be a gated community. That,
he said, would permit preventing traffic leaving the Town Center
from going through the development while providing access to the
stores and the center's Concord Pike and Naamans Road exits via
its internal loop road. The community also would have an
entrance and exit onto Naamans near Grubb Road.
Rhodunda
said one of the competitors for the parcel was Cephalon, a West
Chester, Pa.-based drug company, which the Delaware Economic
Development Office is attempting to woo to Delaware. The 202
Group had, as previously reported by Delaforum, a
letter-of-intent to acquire the property which trumped a bid on
behalf of Cephalon, he said.
Sources
say that the state is still trying to get the drug company to
move to the area with a Rollins property north of the Town
Center along Concord Pike and a Woodlawn Trustees property at
the southwest corner of the Concord Pike-Naamans Road
intersection as potential sites.
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