Coatesville’s Redevelopment Authority signed an agreement Aug. 13 with Oliver Tyrone Pulver Corp., which plans to construct a 125-room Courtyard by Marriott Hotel on a 22-acre site at the southwest corner of Route 82 and the Route 30 Bypass, the city said in a news release.
“Those who are familiar with our story in Coatesville know the historic significance of this event. This deal has been in the works for a long time,” City Manager Harry G. Walker 3d said in the statement. “Therefore, I believe I speak for the entire administration when I say it’s very welcome.”
The agreement will enable Pulver to begin the infrastructure needed to support the $31 million project, said Patrick C. O’Donnell, the Redevelopment Authority’s solicitor.
“It’s the first step in the process of getting the hotel built,” he said. “It’s a great day.”
The project has been repeatedly delayed and scaled back since 2004, when Donald W. Pulver, the development company’s president, proposed a 150-room hotel and conference center on 46 acres for the same price tag.
The delay has not diminished his enthusiasm.
“In the Philadelphia region, growth is to the west, and Chester County is as good as it gets,” he said, citing the county’s high incomes and rapid expansion in business and population.
Pulver said the Route 30 bypass and reconstructed Route 202 facilitate access to Coatesville, especially during rush hour, when most traffic goes in the opposite direction.
The Lancaster area also is expanding, Pulver said, positioning Coatesville for a growth spurt.
He said “a lot of site work needs to be done,” such as grading and installing water, sewer and electrical lines. He estimated there will be 12 to 18 months before groundbreaking on the hotel, which will be a franchise.
Asked about impediments to completing the project – a pattern Coatesville has experienced – Pulver said “nothing – as long as the country doesn’t fall into the ocean.” He said his agreement with the city gives him more than five years to complete the hotel, “much longer” than needed.
The funding, a combination of federal, state, county and local grants along with two private investors’ capital, is in place, he said. The city was paid $250,000, he said.
Pulver said his company, based in West Conshohocken, has developed 13 million square feet of office space in cities that include Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Chicago. The company’s flagship project is Tower Bridge at Conshohocken, a 1.7-million-square-foot office, hotel, and retail complex.
O’Donnell said a feasibility study showed that people frequenting Chester County Airport and Keystone Helicopter Corp. near Coatesville likely would support the hotel.
It would be the only major hotel between Exton and Lancaster, the release said.
Headlines trumpeting Coatesville’s rebirth have come and gone over the last decade as the city’s fortunes fell with the decline of the Lukens steel mill, which once employed 6,000 workers. Now owned by ArcelorMittal, the facility employs about 700.
Coatesville’s approximately 11,600 residents have a median family income of $29,912, less than half of the $65,295 average for Chester County, according to the 2000 census. For several months, they have been working to recover from a crippling 13-month spate of arsons that subsided in March.
Pulver thinks the city’s rebound is finally imminent.
“Forty years ago, Great Valley wasn’t there, and now it’s in the center of things,” he said. “A few years from now, people are going to look at what we did and say, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’