High's vision for Armstrong HQ in Manor Township includes homes, apartments, retail and parks
Nearly 500 acres of land surrounding Armstrong World Industries' Manor Township campus is being eyed for a mixed-used development that could include 200 to 700 single-family homes, 300 to 600 apartments, retail and industrial space, with 175 acres preserved as open space.
High Associates Ltd., an affiliate of High Real Estate Group LLC, could begin construction in 2027 on the property south of Armstrong's 2500 Columbia Ave. headquarters, but the project would likely involve multiple phases spanning more than a decade at an estimated cost exceeding $100 million, according to Ken Hornbeck, senior vice president for High Associates.
High Real Estate Group and Armstrong World Industries announced last October they reached a sale agreement for the 476-acre property bounded by Millersville Road, Charlestown Road and South Centerville Road. The sale is expected to be finalized by the end of this year. Armstrong will keep its 140-acre corporate campus.
High Associates' development plans would require the Manor Township supervisors to change the township zoning ordinance to allow higher-density mixed-use development on the site, which is currently zoned industrial.
"We think a more thoughtful use of the land is mixed-use development, which addresses some of the housing needs of Lancaster County," Hornbeck said.
A formal request could come later this year and would require a hearing to get input from the public. Hornbeck said High Associates has shared its plans with county and township planners.
High Associates plans to ask the township to allow up to 7.5 dwelling units per acre in the areas of the property proposed for residential development, the target building density for the county's urban growth areas set by the Lancaster County Planning Commission in its Places2040 comprehensive plan. That would allow for 1,350 total dwelling units on the property.
Plans detailed
The single-family homes occupying the majority of the site, as well as the townhomes, would be built by one or more homebuilders, under a master homeowners agreement created by High Associates.
"We see this as an opportunity to bring high quality workforce housing to Lancaster County and try to address that missing middle housing type that exists between entry level townhomes and estates," Hornbeck said.
High Associates would develop the apartments, as well as the commercial and industrial buildings. An entity owned by High Real Estate Group would own them.
The proposed retail space would be located just west of Millersville Road, sitting on about 10 acres, less than 10% the size of High Real Estate Group's Crossings at Conestoga Creek in Manheim Township, but possibly large enough for a small grocery store. The industrial land would be in the southwest corner of the property, separate from the rest of the development, near the intersection of Charlestown and South Centerville roads.
High Associates plans to extend Stone Mill Road to South Centerville Road early on in the project. The project would also likely require improvements to Rohrerstown Road (Route 741), which Hornbeck said would take place in collaboration with Manor and East Hempfield townships.
The open space would include a 25-acre park which would become Manor Township property, and other preserved land along a tributary to the Little Conestoga Creek running through the property.
High Associates' project would not be the first attempt to develop housing on the property. In 1999, the property was proposed for a development known as Fairsted, which would have included 1,250 homes and 200,000 square feet of retail space. Armstrong abandoned that project as it dealt with a bankruptcy reorganization at the time. In 2015 Armstrong proposed rezoning a 124-acre section of the property to allow 1,700 units, which it later abandoned.
Hornbeck said in its current zoning, the 476-acre property could be built out as more than 4 million square feet of industrial space.
"That's not what we want to see happen, and we think we can do better," Hornbeck said.
