Coatesville’s empty and expired dreams for condominiums, a lumberyard, power plant, park and velodrome at “the Flats,” plus plans for a new Amtrak train station nearby that remain to be seen, have been joined by yet another letdown.
Not a single idea returned to the city’s redevelopment authority following the latest plea for proposals to resurrect what a Philly.com article called “a vacant tract in the heart of the poorest city in the state’s wealthiest county.”
Yet local officials insist that the property is bursting with potential; “at the gateway to the Coatesville business district, the land is considered vital to the ongoing revitalization of Coatesville,” the article stated.
Despite the lack of interest, the railroad easement crossing the 22-acre former steel plant and a flood plain designation on part of it, optimism is still alive even if the land itself is languishing.
“We’re still looking for the next step in this process. But there will definitely be a next step,” Chester County Economic Development Council’s David Sciocchetti said in the article.
Read more about the Flats in Coatesville and its failure to rise from its G.O. Carlson ashes on Philly.com here.
