Hastings presents changes to commercial space of development
Officials with the new Hastings neighborhood presented changes in its development plan to the South Fayette commissioners Dec. 13.
Anthony Faranda-Diedrich, vice president of neighborhood development for Charter Homes & Neighborhoods, told the board about updated plans for Hastings Crossroads – a section of the 80-acre, 570-home development at the former Mayview Hospital site for commercial and retail – that will now include a restaurant, coffee shop and office space.
Faranda-Diedrich said that rather than a daycare in Crossroads, they are now intending to build a 6,000-square-foot restaurant with an extra 2,000 square feet of outdoor dining space. He said the restaurant could be finished by the end of 2018.
“We feel it’s an overall benefit to have a restaurant that people can walk to and draw traffic to from outside the neighborhood,” he said.
Also in Crossroads, Faranda-Diedrich said they have changed the original plan of two, one-story buildings to a one, two-story building. Previously, one of the buildings would have been a coffee shop with other retail space, while the other building was going to be used for office space.
“What we’ve done with this building is combine those two structures into a single two-story building,” he said. “This building will have a coffee shop and retail space on the ground floor of about 3,000 square feet, and on the second floor, we’ll have 3,000 square feet of office space.”
The changes to the plan, which were previously approved by the township’s planning commission, do not affect the other parts of the Hastings development.
“Nothing else is changing,” Faranda-Diedrich said. “These townhomes are staying the same. The single family homes behind Crossroads are staying the same.”
For the Hastings development in totality, Faranda-Diedrich said site work is “progressing” at the expected rate. He said some of the townhouses will start finishing up around March 2018 and will continue filing in thereafter.
The board voted unanimously following his presentation to accept the changes to the plan.
The $200 million development between Boyce-Mayview and Fairview parks was introduced three years ago and was approved in February. An economic impact study done last year by Charter Homes projected the site would provide 1,300 jobs and $750,000 in property tax revenue. The team also projected the project be finished within five to 10 years when it was approved last year.
In 2015, the plan concerned some at the school board, which is constantly dealing with high enrollment numbers with the growth the township has seen residentially in the last 15 years.