Butler Township prepares for ‘inconvenient’ construction
BUTLER TWP — With four residential housing plans, several restaurants, a car dealership, a medical office and a recreation complex, plus a road reconfiguration project in the works in the township, drivers may experience slowdowns over the next year.
Butler Township officials hosted an informational meeting Thursday morning, July 13, where they listed many of the construction projects expected to take place over the next year or so.
Representatives from a number of other Butler County municipalities and agencies also attended the meeting to learn how these projects will effect their organizations, including Butler Area School District, the Butler Transit Authority, Butler Bureau of Fire, Butler Downtown and others.
Dave Zarnick, Butler Township commission chairman, said some of the ongoing projects — namely the reconfiguration of the Armco Drive, Hansen Avenue and Whitestown Road intersection — are long overdue.
“Everybody wants new infrastructure, new roads, new everything — but no one wants to be inconvenienced,” Zarnick said. “Once all these projects get done, just think how this area is going to look. It’s going to be revitalized.”
The road construction projects are likely to be more invasive than the building construction, however, especially in the Lyndora area. The plan for the intersection across the Picklegate Bridge includes a realignment of Armco Drive and some left-turning lanes to make exiting that road easier, according to Butler Township manager Tom Knights. The intersection is planned to resemble a cross.
Knights said the project probably will not begin until spring.
“The hope is to bid the transportation project this year, give the successful contractor plenty of time,” Knights said. “So they would have the entirety of winter to acquire all the traffic signal components.”
Jonathan Garczewski, with Gateway Engineers, said the project could begin by removing “Armco Drive as it currently is and begin construction” on the new leg.
In addition to this road reconfiguration, the Butler Area Sewer Authority is planning to rehabilitate sewage pipes on Whitestown Road and Hansen Avenue, according to Duane McKee, sewer authority executive director. This project could take three to six months to complete, during which there will be temporary lane closures on Whitestown Road.
McKee said the authority is still obtaining permits from the state, and construction likely won’t begin for awhile.
Tabitha Scutt, Butler Area School District’s transportation director, and Tiffany Fosnaught, finance manager for the Butler Transit Authority, raised concerns about the traffic flow in the area and how it will impact bus routes.
“We do anticipate daylight operations (on Whitestown Road); with temporary lane closures throughout the day,” said Evan Oswald, the sewer authority’s superintendent of engineering services. “PennDOT is requiring nighttime work on anything that happens on Hansen itself with the intersection.”
The township is also in the process of creating a recreation complex by Pullman Business Park. The first phase involves the installation of an artificial turf field near the Butler Transit Authority office that will come with soccer, lacrosse and football markings. There also will be a parking lot with 68 spaces, which Knights said is slated to contain four chargers for electric vehicles.
“The artificial turf is ordered, the poles are ordered,” Knights said. “The hope is to be able to play on this field sometime in October.”
Butler Township zoning officer Jesse Hines gave updates on several ongoing building projects, including work on the McDonald’s and Taco Bell at Greater Butler Mart, the Popeye’s going in on New Castle Road and the No. 1 Cochran dealership also planned for New Castle Road.
Additionally, Hines said $41 million in new construction costs occurred in 2022 in Butler Township, and this year is shaping up to have similar numbers with the number of housing developments currently under construction.
“We’ve typically had years where we averaged 12 new single-family dwellings in a year,” Hines said. “Over the past several years, it has increased dramatically. In 2021, we had 24 new single-family homes; (in) 2022, we had 31 single-family homes; (and) to date in 2023, we already have 32.”
Zarnick said the developments taking place in Butler Township may be inconvenient for a while, but the end result of the projects — especially the road reconfiguration — will increase convenience for drivers.
“I think we should all be very proud of what’s going on in our community and what is coming,” Zarnick said. “That Lyndora-Pullman area has needed a revitalization for a long time. It should help the businesses that are in that neighborhood, and we look forward to what it will bring.”
