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Morrisville Borough set to vote on waterfront development plan

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Morrisville Borough, once a thriving town with a thriving, well-established commercial district has fallen on hard times. Its borough council is set to meet Nov. 15 to consider a revitalization plan for the Williamson Park area.
The town has many advantages, the view, for one. It looks across the Delaware River to Trenton, the revitalizing capital of New Jersey, with its state government buildings and the gold-domed capitol. It’s almost like a miniature Hoboken with its view of New York City across the Hudson.
The town also offers easy access to transportation across the Calhoun Street Bridge – an Amtrak and local service train station, the Trenton-Mercer Airport and I-95.
Morrisville, located just south of more affluent Lower Makefield Township, has its own school district that cannot compete with the powerhouse districts surrounding it.
A group of visionary architects and land planners have created a plan to revive Morrisville, to make it a desirable place to live, with green space, restaurants on Bridge Street, access to the river and residences that should appeal to an influx of people who enjoy the amenities of a riverside town. It can improve the tax base and reinvigorate the schools.

The planners project building 562 residential units and creating 424 jobs and the plan does not destroy existing historic retail buildings in the business district.
Borough residents have objected to the height of the buildings, preferring townhouses but the developer says multi-story condos are the only economically feasible design.
The group behind the Joseph McGrath Associates plan includes John VanLuvanee, lawyer from Doylestown; Daniel Chicco, landscape architect of Sikora Wells Appel; Merilee Meacock of KSS Architects of Princeton, Peter Stampfl of Stampfl Associates, Doylestown; David Minno of Minno and Wasko Architects and Planners of Lambertville and Newark, N.J.; Bohler Engineering; Matthew Hammond of TPD, Traffic Planning and Design; and Erik Hetzel, certified planner.
The planners promise a safer, more walkable and vital town to residents. 


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