Developers to revise State College Autoport plans, pushing back review timeline
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- Plans to develop the former State College Autoport property are on hold.
- Project officials will revise the preliminary land development plan before it is reviewed.
- Original plans called for new businesses and restaurants for the long-vacant property.
State College officials will need to wait a little longer to review plans for development at a historic property.
Preliminary land development plans for the property that once held the historic Autoport motel are on hold as project officials work to submit a revised proposal, senior borough planner Daniel McCombie said Monday. The plans were originally scheduled for review in April.
Plans submitted to the borough in February showed spaces for a gas station and convenience store, new restaurants, retail spaces and more at the property along South Atherton Street, which has sat vacant for more than a decade.
McCombie said the borough has not received a new timeline from the project developer, which is not withdrawing the original plans but instead revising them. For that reason, they are expected to be generally similar to the plans shared with the borough in February.
Those original plans, drawn by PennTerra Engineering, Inc., appeared to show a four-phase project timeline that would begin with the construction of a 6,358-square-foot convenience store and a 14-pump fuel canopy on the property’s southeastern side. A second phase of construction in the property’s center showed five separate retail spaces ranging between 1,333 and 2,400 square feet, as well as a 2,033-square-foot restaurant with a drive-thru lane and patio area.
A third phase of the project called for the construction of a larger, 5,484-square-foot restaurant with a drive-thru, as well as canopies for ordering and picking up food. The fourth and final phase of work would have spruced up an existing 3,548-square-foot storage building in the northwestern corner of the property.
Original plans received by the borough did not specify what businesses were intended to occupy the retail and restaurant spaces planned for the property.
The developer listed on the plans, South Atherton Real Estate of the Welteroth Property Group, did not immediately respond to requests for comment regarding the project.
Once revised plans are submitted, the State College borough’s five-member Design Review Board will examine them before passing them along to the borough’s planning commission for another review.
The former Autoport property along the 1400 block of South Atherton Street has sat vacant with little or no changes for years. Many trees were removed from the property in May 2024, marking the first signs of activity there in years.
The Autoport was Pennsylvania’s oldest operating motel when it closed in December 2015. Its former owners declared bankruptcy and sold the property for $2.1 million.
The property was nearly set for development when plans for a new 122-room Home2 Suites by Hilton hotel were submitted in January 2020, but the project never materialized. The site was posted for lease in June 2024.
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