Suburbia: We Can’t Work It Out

But none of this can happen, Manko knows, without some prodding. “We’re going to have to step up and play the role of the spark,” Manko says. More specifically, that means rolling in the bulldozer to raze a strip of 10 buildings housing nine businesses along Lancaster, stretching from the Pennywise Thrift Shop to Fellini’s Café, a popular pizza and pasta joint. In between lie a Veterans of Foreign Wars outpost and Suburban Office Equipment, a family-owned operation that’s been on the block (but in various buildings) for 80 years.  With the exception of the thrift shop, the businesses aren’t downright ugly or down-at-the-heels. Then again, as a hodgepodge of Art Deco and early 1900s buildings, they don’t exude the charm you’d expect from their designation as the town’s official historic district.

 Ideally, those buildings would be acquired through negotiation. But there was a legal justification for the township simply to take them — specifically, the redevelopment laws originally designed to clear urban slums in the ’50s by declaring buildings “blighted.”  Deeming an ugly facade a social detriment or a low-rent electronics store a cause for public action is something more and more suburban communities are doing (and something Kelo v. New London validated.) And, okay, it’s not that Dickensian: Shopkeepers or homeowners are compensated for the value of their property, albeit in a non-negotiable amount established by the township’s appraisal.

Unfortunately, if their plan for Ardmore was bold and visionary, most of the things Manko and his colleagues did to get the affected parties on board now seem pretty dumb. At a minimum, you’d think they would have met with the businesses privately to discuss their plans and negotiate possible purchases of the properties, as the city of New London originally did. Perhaps they could have sweetened the deal with moving assistance and help finding another location within Ardmore.

Instead, it seems the township didn’t even do much to ensure the businesses knew the plan was on the table. Though the township-­sponsored business association, Ardmore 2000, presented a preview of the plan in the fall of 2003, it didn’t make sure the nine imperiled businesses would be there to hear it. Instead, Colette Speakman of Ardmore 2000 says, she “thinks” the businesses were sent a fax to invite them. It was also, perhaps, in poor taste for the group to give that presentation following its annual business association dinner at the Hunan Chinese restaurant on Lancaster Avenue — one of the very businesses they were proposing be demolished.

And then there was The Letter. While the township’s plan for Ardmore wouldn’t be approved by Montgomery County until March of 2005, the nine affected businesses were sent a letter on February 19, 2004, that opened as follows: “The purpose of this letter is to formally notify you, as property owner, of the Township’s intention to acquire your property referenced above for inclusion in the Ardmore Transit Town Center project.”

Even Joe Manko admits that wasn’t so smart.