Lehigh University to discuss Stabler land plans with Upper Saucon Township officials

Lehigh University officials plan to meet with Upper Saucon Township supervisors next month to discuss their ideas for developing several hundred acres recently donated to the school.

Township Director of Community Development Sharyn E. Heater said Lehigh officials are slated to attend the board of supervisors' Aug. 12 meeting. It will be the first time university and Upper Saucon officials have met publicly to talk about the land, which was a gift from the Donald B. and Dorothy Stabler Foundation.

Heater doesn't know what Lehigh has in mind for the land but said school officials indicated they're working to craft a "thoughtful" development plan that will serve both the school and community's long-term needs.

Lehigh spokesman Jordan Reese said university President Alice Gast will be on hand but that university officials do not intend to present formal development plans during the meeting. Additional information about Lehigh's plans for the land may be available closer to the meeting date, he said.

A sign at Route 378 and Center Valley Parkway in Upper Saucon indicates Lehigh is gearing up to develop the property. The sign reads, "Prime Development Land: The Stabler Campus -- Lehigh University," and bears the school logo, as well as that of Jones Lang LaSalle, a commercial real estate firm headquartered in Chicago with offices nationwide.

Calls to a number listed on the sign and Jones Lang LaSalle's headquarters were not immediately returned.

Gast, in an April 2012 email about the Stabler Foundation gift, said the land likely would be used for multiple purposes: an expansion of the Bethlehem-based school, commercial development and preservation of open space.

An expansion in Upper Saucon would make Lehigh the township's third college. DeSales University and Penn State Lehigh Valley also are located in the municipality.

The Upper Saucon land is about three miles from Lehigh's main campus in Bethlehem and one mile from its Goodman Campus in Lower Saucon Township. The university owns about 1,600 acres combined in the city and Lower Saucon; the Upper Saucon property acquisition grew the school's land holdings by nearly 50 percent and made it the township's largest landowner, officials have said.

Heater said the land, about 755 acres, comprises 20 separate properties, the largest of which surrounds The Promenade Shops at Saucon Valley and is roughly bordered by Interstate 78 and Routes 309 and 378.

The land encompasses both sides of Center Valley Parkway and neighbors the former Center Valley Club golf course, which closed in October 2011. Like Lehigh's land, the club also has ties to Stabler, though not the foundation. Sierra Management Co., of Doylestown, Pa., bought the property from Stabler Land Co. for $3.6 million in 2007, according to Lehigh County property records.

Sierra President Greg Kessell hopes to present plans for developing the 203-acre property before the end of the year.

"We're trying to figure out the best way to develop the property with multiple uses," he said, but declined to specify when Upper Saucon officials can expect to get a look at what's in the works. "It should be happening relatively soon."

Kessell said the plans involve an adjacent but separately owned 17-acre property and the development may include a hotel and a medical facility. Publicly discussing the plans in any more detail could put them in jeopardy, he said, adding, "The contracts are being negotiated."

When the club closed in 2011, Bank of America was eying the property as the potential site of a corporate data center. The bank also looked at land in Lopatcong Township for a similar purpose but eventually ruled out plans for both properties.

The club property's proximity to I-78, Olympus' North American headquarters and other Stabler Corporate Center occupants make it well suited for a hotel, but any development at the site is bound to be complicated, Heater said. The golf course was built atop underground zinc mines and the property is traversed by Saucon Creek, includes wetlands and sits in a flood plain, she explained.

A development plan would have to address all of those issues in keeping with township and Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection regulations, Heater said.

"He has this big piece of property," Heater said of Kessell, who hasn't spoken recently with township officials about his plans. "We're all curious to see what he's going to come in with."

Contact Lehigh County suburbs reporter Precious Petty at 484-894-3854 or ppetty@express-times.com.

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Source: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/lehigh-county/index.ssf/2013/07/lehigh_university_president_to.html

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