Mark your calendars!
The “long and winding” sidewalk saga at St. Davids Golf Club is finally coming to an end. After more years than I care to remember, the infamous ‘sidewalk to nowhere’, as coined by some, is finally going to happen. At the end of tonight’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Tredyffrin Township engineer Steve Burgo, announced that as of this afternoon, the project is moving forward. According to Burgo, St. Davids has hired a contractor and the sidewalk (path) installation work will start next week, on Wednesday, February 20th.
A process has a beginning, middle and an end. This path was included in a land development agreement between St. Davids and Tredyffrin Township signed many years ago. I did a search on Community Matters to see how long ago I wrote my first post on the St. Davids sidewalks topic — for the record, my first post written on this subject was November 15, 2009.
The St. Davids sidewalk saga actually got its start 8+ years ago, in November 2004, when representatives for the country club made a presentation to the township’s Planning Commission that included a sketch plan of their proposed new country club addition. Ultimately the sidewalks became a Planning Commission requirement in that land development agreement. During the intervening years since 2004, St. Davids completed their addition and in August, 2005, $25K was escrowed for the sidewalk component of the project. In July 2006, St. Davids was given a 2-year construction timeline to build the 4-ft. wide asphalt ‘path’ and until recently, the project never advanced past that point.
I recently learned from a former St. Davids board member, that the club had the cost of building the sidewalk in their budget all along, and was committed to building the sidewalk — simply stated, they were waiting for the township to tell them to build it. Wow. At this point, I don’t care who is responsible for the lengthy delay; I’m just thrilled that the ‘end’ of this process is finally coming next week.
Of course, the only caveat to the ‘shovel going in the ground’ next week, on February 20th is possible interference from Old Man Winter. But always the optimist, I’m counting on Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction earlier this month,indicating an early Spring, which will allow St. Davids to complete their land development agreement with Tredyffrin Township.