The New Castle County Council is scheduled to vote tonight whether to rezone 40 percent of the Barley Mill Plaza office complex to allow for a 1.6 million square foot commercial complex that will include a 450,000-square-foot shopping center. This rezoning is a compromise plan and is necessary to prevent an even larger mixed use complex from being built on the former duPont complex by Pam Scott’s Stoltz Real Estate Partners. The complex would be located at the intersection of Route 141 and 48 near Greenville.
Wait, how is this a compromise plan? Well, Stotz originally wanted to build a 2.8 million square foot mixed use complex that would include a shopping center, office space and residential condominiums. Since the old office park is already zoned for mixed use, Stotz would not have to seek the County Council’s approval for a rezoning. For some perspective, a 2.8 million square foot plan is as large as the King of Prussia Mall.
So Stotz is basically holding a gun to the County Council’s head. Improve our plans to build another unnecessary development, or we will be build an even larger and unnecessary monstrosity.
Many of the opponents of any development on the old Barley Mill site believe it will turn 141 in this area into a commercial corridor like Kirkwood Highway or Concord Pike. Indeed, the Planning Board says the development should be rejected as out of character with the surrounding community. But opponents to both plans seem to be sh*t of luck. New Castle County County President and future failed congressional candidate Tom Kovach says he will vote for the compromise development because to do otherwise will harm the community.
But will it? Many think the plans to build a larger complex are all a bluff, and Kovach fell hook line and sinker for it:
Save Our County members said Stoltz never wanted to build the larger plan in the first place.
“Stoltz set up a horror story that he never intended to build,” McEvilly said. “All anyone has to do is look at the road structure at Barley Mill and compare it to the roads around the King of Prussia or Christiana malls and they’ll realize that a 2.8 million-square-feet project isn’t feasible.”
If you want to go and try to speak your mind, the meeting will begin at 7 p.m. tonight at the Louis L. Redding City-County Building, Eighth and French streets, Wilmington. The council chambers is on the first floor.