Decision On Phoenixville Kindergarten Sale Pushed To 2022

PHOENIXVILLE, PA — A final decision on the sale of the Phoenixville Area School District's Kindergarten property will not be made until 2022, school officials have determined, as they decided to postpone a vote on the matter during a meeting this week.

The largest offer on the table for the is a $3.9 million bid from Toll Brothers, which wants to build new townhomes on the land. Phoenixville Borough has a different idea: a new public park that preserves much of the land as open space, and adapting the existing structure as a community STEM learning center.

"Once open space is developed, it’s gone, forever," the Phoenixville Green Team, a group working to support the borough's proposal, shared in a recent statement. "Start imagining a new community property preserving open space for public use."

But the borough is just one of four bidders for the property, and their offer of $1.8 million is less than half of what the top bidder, Toll Brothers, has put forth. The borough's offer also does not provide the projected tax revenue of the big developers.

Toll Brothers, of course, wants to build townhomes. Their offer could bring in up to $5.6 million in tax revenue over the next 10 years, according to statistics shared during a recent presentation to the school board. The bid is a few hundred thousand more than a competing development offer from Rockwell, whose proposal has similar projections.

The borough's park and education center proposal, meanwhile, would bring in just $16,000 over the same time span.

The sale of the East Pikeland property and the Kindergarten Center have been on the district's Building and Grounds agenda for the past year. The property is for sale because the district's needs outgrew the building several years before, and the existing property is not large enough for both the necessary expansion of the school and the area needed for parking.