It's still uncertain whether a second Middletown Township Chick-fil-A will be coming to the Langhorne Square Shopping Center at 1501 E. Lincoln Hwy (Business Route 1).
At its May meeting, the township board of supervisors voted unanimously to approve a major subdivision that splits off a 1.88-acre parcel from the 12-plus acre-shopping center. However, attorney Mike Meginniss, representing the applicant Waterstone Properties, and Waterstone Senior Vice-President Dan Gustafson both said they are hopeful but not certain Chick-fil-A will go ahead and build on the newly created parcel.
The popular eatery received land development approval from the supervisors in November 2021 to put a new restaurant at the site. Soon after, Waterstone sold Langhorne Square to You and Me Langhorne, with a stipulation that the 1.88-acre piece intended for the Chick-fil-A be re-conveyed back to Waterstone provided it got subdivision approval, which happened May 1.
Despite the land development approval from 2021, officials from Chick-fil-A are still doing their due diligence on conditions attached to and other details of the approval and have not decided whether to actually build at the location, Meginniss and Gustafson explained.
"My client (Waterstone) would love for Chick-fil-A to move forward at this location, but there is no guarantee they will," Meginniss said this month.
Gustafson did not attend the May 1 meeting in person but tuned in via Zoom.
"Unfortunately, I don't have a timeline yet regarding CFA and their decision," he wrote in an email to the Herald. "We still remain optimistic that they will be moving ahead on our site."
Since they already received land development approval, Chick-fil-A officials would simply have to obtain building and other permits to proceed, Meginniss explained.
If Chick-fil-A opts out, Waterstone would market the 1.88 acres to "other appropriate commercial users" with a bank or another restaurant among the possibilities, he added. That other possible user would have to go through the land development process and get approval from the supervisors to proceed with construction at the site, Meginniss said.
If built, the Chick-fil-A would be located between the Inspire Credit Union and the Starbucks. It would be the second Middletown Chick-fil-A, joining one about a mile away at the Lincoln Plaza shopping center, adjacent to the Oxford Valley Mall.
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