Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Five picked to compete for redeveloping Willow Grove air base



Five development teams were short-listed to explore becoming master developer of the former Naval air base in Willow Grove, Pa.

The five are:
  • Catellus Development Corp. from Oakland, Calif.
  • Hankin Group of Exton, Pa.
  • A team comprised of K. Hovnanian of Red Bank, N.J., Basser-Kaufman of Woodmere, N.Y., Oxford Properties Group, which is a Canadian company with presence in the United States and Korman Communities of Plymouth Meeting, Pa.
  • Lennar Corp. of Miami.
  • Toll Brothers Inc. of Horsham, Pa.

The K. Hovnanian team was a late entry to the original group that responded earlier this spring to a request for qualifications from the Horsham Land Redevelopment Authority, which is overseeing the redevelopment of the 862-acre former air base. In all, 11 companies or development teams responded.

Aside from the five picked to move on to the second phase, the other companies that threw their hats into the competition were American Real Estate Development of Souderton, Pa., LCOR of Berwyn, Pa., NVR Inc. of Reston, Va., O’Neill Properties Group of King of Prussia, Pa., and Realen Properties of Berwyn.

HRLA said in a statement the teams were evaluated on a range of criteria including “organizational structure and key personnel assigned to the project, experience on similar projects and past performance of the firms on each team.”

The five selected now need to submit detailed plans on what they would pursue for the site and one is expected to be selected by the end of the summer as master developer.

The third and final phase of this process will involve the newly named master developer to move forward with a plan that the HLRA, with community input, came up with for the site. Those plans include building a town center, residential, office, retail, recreational and educational uses.

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