MERCER COUNTY City OKs plans for store project

The city solicitor said the Wal-Mart project has met city requirements.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
HERMITAGE, Pa. -- City commissioners had economic development at the top of their list as they approved land development plans for a Wal-Mart Supercenter and other commercial projects.
The vote was 4-0 with Commissioner Pat White absent Wednesday as the commissioners approved a final plan for Hermitage Crossing, the proposed site of the 212,000-square-foot Wal-Mart store.
Although White was out of town on city business, he left a note with Commissioner Sylvia Stull saying that, had he been present, he would have voted against the Wal-Mart project.
Assistant City Manager Gary Gulla said Atty. Thomas Kuster, city solicitor, told the board before the vote that project developer Cedarwood Development Inc. of Akron had met all city requirements for the commercial project to be built along Pa. Route 18 just north of the Shenango Valley YMCA.
Cedarwood's plan is to open the Supercenter in September 2005.
Next steps
The project has yet to secure a state highway occupancy permit to allow it access to Route 18. It must also submit an acceptable storm-water management plan and secure both state and federal approval for alterations to wetlands on the property.
Besides the Supercenter, the land development plan includes a free-standing 70,000-square-foot plaza and a free-standing restaurant.
Commissioners also approved final plans for a 1,544-square-foot Handel's Ice Cream store, to be built in the Shenango Valley Mall parking lot just off East State Street, and for the conversion of the 30,000-square-foot vacant County Market grocery store on East State Street into the new offices of Community Counseling Center of Mercer County.
In other business, commissioners:
UVoted to lend $150,000 to Penn-Northwest Development Corp., the county's lead nonprofit economic development agency, to buy 82 acres on State Line Road. Farrell owns the land, and Penn-Northwest plans to develop it as Stateline Industrial Park in a $1.7 million project that will rely heavily on state funding for land clearance and infrastructure improvements.
UNamed Stull the board's new president, succeeding the late Bill Scanlon, who died in May. Stull was vice president, and that position now is vacant.