I have written before how I feel that Malvern’s super-sizing via the Eli Kahn development on King Street is a huge mistake.

In March, the Daily Local had one of its nameless editorial columns on it. As was the case with a couple nameless, faceless editorials on West Vincent, they were off the mark on Malvern too. And honestly, part of my problem with these editorial is that if you want to go incognito on a blog, that is one thing, but if you are writing for a large local and regional paper, sign your name.

So the Daily Local said at the time:

Ok, did the nameless, faceless anonymous editorial column writers walk the site? Or did they merely expound upon a developer feel-good press release?

I went to the site today while running errands. I was profoundly disturbed by what I saw, and can easily envision for the future. Yes, it is a site that should be redeveloped. But why not a park and a couple of stores? Or something Malvern lacks? Sufficient parking?

Malvern Patch also has covered this development. Much like The Daily Local has. The Daily Local has also covered the Kahn-ism of West Chester too. In both cases, I feel in my heart of hearts, this will when all said and done, like letting the proverbial fox in the hen-house.

West Chester has a good formula in their downtown now, which I saw more of this morning when I went to the West Chester Grower’s Market. Carolyn Comitta and Holly Brown better keep their heads on right, lest they ruin a good thing.

Developers always say the right thing when they come a courting, but what happens when they leave?

Which brings me back to Malvern. You know what I think Eli Kahn and Jack Loew’s project is going to be like when it is done? A super-sized Charleston Greene. And over the years, how has Toll’s Charleston Greene worked for you ,Malvern?

As I went back and forth through Malvern today, checking the streetscape, I had to wonder if they needed super-sized development anymore than Ardmore, PA does? In Ardmore, the residents wanted a new train station which may never appear in anyone’s lifetimes now, but on Monday apparently there is a press conference about the work beginning on the Paoli Transportation Center.

As I said before, as long as I can remember has had an unfortunate identity crisis – mostly stemming from local officials as opposed to residents. The borough of Malvern has a charm that doesn’t need super-sizing with giant Tyvec wrapped buildings that will end up looking like a New Urbanism Disneyland.

Malvern will sacrifice any charm of the area and the traffic will be a nightmare.

I think parts of Malvern may end up looking as unattractive as parts of Eagle, another tiny community developers had a “vision” for. When municipalities suffer an identity crisis, the residents and business owners are the ones who suffer in the end.

I sure hope I am wrong about Malvern and these plans, but I don’t think so. What I see are future buildings just sitting right on the street without sufficient setbacks like Jabba the Hutt, architecture (if you can call it that) that picks up zero cues from its surroundings, over-abundance of density abutting train tracks and an urban feel all wrong for a somewhat sleepy and small Chester County borough town.

And mark my words, just because they build it it does not mean they will come. And if they come, they might not be what you wanted.

But the horse is out of the barn on this one. So we’ll just wait and see. Hopefully I won’t be able to say I told you so. But again, honestly, I think Malvern had better enjoy Malvern before it’s gone.

In the shadow of Paoli Hospital, lying at its literal feet is a teeny neighborhood. The neighborhood is an island unto itself, squashed between the shadow of the GIANT hospital complex and Route 30.

What is the deal with that neighborhood? Is it something the hospital wishes would go away? What was it once part of?

I am told that this little village in front of Paoli Hospital may have once housed quarry workers as did the one on Route 401 (only 1 house left there now) near the railroad crossing (now bike path). A long time Chester County resident remembers in the 50’s, working class families living at both locations, and was told they worked at the quarry. The quarry supposedly became the Rubino-Knickerbocker landfill (wasn’t that a super fund site?), then 202 purportedly went right through it. The quarry, some say, was known as the L.K. Quarry, and the Knickerbocker Lime Co. where a lime kiln was operated. I guess the kiln/lime works was what the workers were needed for?

What do you know about this little village? Was the reference to a fire that Knickerbocker Lime Co called in at the turn of the 20th century in the Malvern Fire Company history this neighborhood/village?

Now, I have found a couple of things talking about the quarries and landfill:

on TE History:

GREAT VALLEY AREA LIMESTONE QUARRIES

(see Page 16):

Plate 15—East Whiteland Township—of volume two of the 1963 Franklin Survey Property Atlas of the Main Line shows that 154 acres in the quarry area are owned by Theodore S. A. Rubino and another 43 acres are owned by Rae Crowther. The former siding south to the Trenton Cut-Off is now shown as an unimproved road.

By 1970 the quarry was inactive, had been flooded with water to create a natural lake, and was known as the Knickerbocker Sanitary Landfill.

Around 2000, Liberty Property Trust purchased a total of 60 acres—the 30-acre quarry and the surrounding area—from the estate of Samuel and Theodore Rubino for between $7 and $8 million.