Developers Detail Plans for Cranberry Crossroads

At Monday’s Planning Advisory Commission meeting, developers presented modified plans for the shopping center, including a glimpse at drawings for the two-story Dick’s Sporting Goods store, which is planned to beof the complex.

Taking up 98,940 square feet of retail space on Route 228 next to the already-established Cranberry Commons shopping plaza, Cranberry Crossroads also includes 90,000 square feet of business and professional office space, a 6,300-square-foot restaurant and a 5,569-square-foot GetGo fueling station and car wash on 24 acres of land.

ECHO Realty, a Pittsburgh-based real estate and retail development company, is developing the retail space. Pittsburgh's Elmhurst Group is responsible for the office space.

ECHO’s Phil Bishop said developers hope to break ground on the former campground by late summer to early fall.

“We’re still pushing an aggressive schedule,” he said.

At Monday’s meeting, he reviewed plans for separate pedestrian and bike paths to be located within the shopping center. There also are plans for a gazebo, trees, shrubs, benches and other landscaping details as the township’s streetscape enhancement ordinance requires.

There also will be a bus stop on the grounds, even though there currently is no service to that area. With all the upcoming development, Bishop said that might change in the future.

“If it’s going to be a major corridor, it may be an ideal location for a bus stop,” he said.

Bishop also said there would be a right-turn-only entrance into the GetGo gas station and convenience store that would be separate from complex’s main entrance. This is meant to create easier access to the gas station, he said. Ron Henshaw, Cranberry’s director of community development, said the complex’s main entrance could have four to five lanes.

Bishop said he still is working with the township to find the right decorative signal poles that would fit the township’s streetscape ordinance as well as span the intersection to the shopping center. Most decorative poles span 60 feet, he said. The pole for the Cranberry Commons would need to span 80 feet. He said one solution would be to use poles with the signals strung across decorative wires.

After returning last week from a real estate convention in Las Vegas, Bishop also said he had several tenants seriously interested in leasing the restaurant space.

Planning officials reviewed drawings for the Dick’s Sporting Goods store, which showed a two-story brick complex with plenty of window space across the front. Bishop said this style would be carried throughout the other buildings in the complex, including the office space.

“It’s leading the way for the design,” he said.

Bishop said he hopes the plans will be considered for preliminary approval at the planning commission's next meeting on June 27.