College Township wants your opinion on how to revitalize area around Nittany Mall
College Township residents and other stakeholders are invited to share their input on how the Dale Summit Area should be redeveloped.
Dale Summit — the area of College Township around the intersections of the Benner Pike, East College Avenue and Shiloh Road, and home of the Nittany Mall — has experienced “slow and fragmented growth” for the past 20 years, according to a press release from the township. That has contributed to the gradual eroding of the area’s sense of place, it states.
“Recognizing this issue, College Township is currently undertaking efforts aimed at the revitalization of Dale Summit. These efforts involve the creation of a Dale Summit Redevelopment Plan, which is being coupled with the eventual transition away from traditional zoning to some type of a more flexible Form-Based Code,” the release states.
Beginning Monday, the township and its consultant DPZ CoDesign will have a charrette where the public can participate and help inform the development of the Dale Summit Redevelopment Plan. The charrette will last four days, through June 22, and will have a series of intensive planning sessions that the public, designers and others will collaborate to refine the vision.
A charrette is a “series of intensive planning sessions where residents, designers, and many others collaborate on a vision for development,” according to the release.
“A charrette has been proven to achieve project goals more efficiently and with more in-depth stakeholder and public participation than a conventional planning process,” the release states. Key features, like collaboration, multi-disciplinary, multiple days long, short feedback loops, and design and planning, help accomplish that.
The charrette will be at the College Township Municipal Building, 1481 E. College Ave., State College. It will have public presentations, open design studio hours, and topic based sessions on June 20 and June 21 that will focus on area marketability, transportation and infrastructure, parks, trails and schools, and land use and zoning.
The opening and closing presentations, and the work-in-progress open house, are public meetings that will give an overview of the entire project and hear developing ideas, according to the release. Then, topic meetings allows people interested in specific topics, such as area marketability, to discuss the issues and provide input. Open studio hours are drop-in times when the public can stop by and talk one-on-one with team members and see the designers at work, it states.
The schedule, which can also be found online at www.collegetownship.org/389/Dale-Summit-Redevelopment-Plan, is as follows:
Monday, June 19
10 a.m.-noon: Open studio
5:30-7:30 p.m.: Opening presentation
Tuesday, June 20
10-10:30 a.m.: Open studio
10:30 a.m.-noon: Marketability
1-2:30 p.m.: Transportation and infrastructure
2:30-4 p.m.: Parks, trails and schools
4-5:30 p.m.: Open studio
5:30-7 p.m.: Work-in-progress open house
Wednesday, June 21
10-10:30 a.m.: Open studio
10:30 a.m.-noon: Land use and zoning
1-7 p.m.: Open studio
Thursday, June 22
5:30-7 p.m.: Closing presentation
