Work is happening at Patton Crossing on North Atherton. What’s next for the development?
Construction vehicles have returned to the 30-acre Patton Crossing development on North Atherton Street, a site that’s planned to eventually include a hotel, housing and several businesses.
The plans for the multi-use development started more than a decade ago when 1752 North Atherton Street Associates purchased the land for $5.5 million. In 2017, Patton Township supervisors approved rezoning for the former Penn State Mobile Home Park, making it multi-use for business and residential buildings.
In 2019, a master plan was approved, including 20 buildings over 12 phases. The finished product is expected to contain businesses, community gathering spaces, a hotel and affordable housing. Centre County’s first Aldi location became the first business in the new development, opening in 2021.
In 2022, plans for the second building — Centre 1st Bank’s headquarters building — were unveiled, with a groundbreaking ceremony held in November 2022. But since then progress at the development has stalled. The construction that can be seen from street now is work on the site’s retaining wall near where the bank would go, Whitman said. Centre 1st Bank did not respond to requests for comment about why work has been delayed.
The retaining wall is part of the development’s Phase Two construction and not part of the bank’s construction plan, Patton Township manager Amy Farkas said.
The entire development is expected to take 25 years to complete, with the planned hotel site slated for construction in 2042, Whitman said. It’s not uncommon for large developments to take several decades or more to fill up. One of Patton Township’s other developments, Toftrees, was started in the 1960s and is still undergoing development.
Despite the long timeline, the original vision for the development still stands.
“I don’t like to think of having that land undeveloped for so long,” Whitman said. “And I don’t even think I kind of grasped that at the time. I didn’t know that anybody did. But what we as supervisors were up against is, do we want student housing? Do we need more Panda Express? Or do we want to have this idea of a planned community, a live work play area?”
Patton Township did receive a $1.5 million grant from the Commonwealth Financing Authority in 2021 to reduce traffic congestion and expand the intersection into the development.
“The township then applies for that or maybe in conjunction with the developer, and then the township is the recipient of that money,” Whitman said. “The developer then presents a bill to the township and the township pays through the grant money.”
Although the project is still is progress, Patton Township supervisors have not seen any new plans for businesses or residential buildings within the development since July 2022.
This story was originally published October 24, 2023 at 2:29 PM.