LOWER MERION \u2014 Lower Merion Commissioners have approved a resolution to allow the township staff to apply for a $1 million grant to help fund the renovation of Ardmore\u2019s\u00a0Schauffele Plaza.<\/p>\n
Charles Doyle, assistant director of Building and Planning for Lower Merion Township, said the grant request follows one made last year for the planned work in the adjacent Cricket Terrace project.<\/p>\n
The grant would be through the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development\u2019s Main Street Matters program.<\/p>\n
Ernie McNeely, township manager, said the Main Street Matters program is relatively new, and the township is still waiting to learn about the Cricket Terrace grant.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re waiting to hear on that one, but in the meantime, they\u2019ve opened up a new round of the grants. And of course, we want to get in under the deadline to apply for some more money,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Although the final plans for Schauffele Plaza are still not in place, McNeely said this second grant will go towards the actual work, whatever the township decides to do in Schauffele Plaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we\u2019re just trying to make sure we get in line for money,\u201d McNeely said.<\/p>\n
The redesign of Schauffele Plaza was identified as a priority project in the 2023 Ardmore Master Plan. The plan provided an opportunity for design consultants to explore improvements to the plaza and adjacent public parking lot.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese improvements focus on enhancing and improving connectivity in downtown Ardmore and nearby residential neighborhoods as well as creating a vibrant public space in the heart of Ardmore,\u201d according to the staff memo to the commissioners. \u201cWhile the design has yet to be finalized, improving the plaza is a priority. The improvements associated with Schauffele Plaza are estimated by the Township Engineer to cost $5,333,751, of which $1,000,000 will be covered by the requested grant funds.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the resolution passed by the Lower Merion Board of Commissioners, \u201cthe Township has designed improvements within and along Schauffele Plaza, specifically aimed at expanding public parking in Lot #5, creating on-street parking, and improving pedestrian connectivity to the existing parking garage to increase utilization.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schauffele Plaza and parking lot six include the area off Lancaster Avenue between Rittenhouse Place and Cricket Avenue. The parking area has 72 spaces. Schauffele Plaza is the smaller paved area along Lancaster Avenue with benches.<\/p>\n
The two sites are occasionally used for activities during community events, such as the annual Main Line Bike Race.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: August 7, 2025 at 10:18 AM EDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOWER MERION \u2014 Lower Merion Commissioners have approved a resolution to allow the township staff to apply for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[182,183,185,184,186,139,28,729],"class_list":["post-7745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lower-merion","tag-local-news","tag-lower-merion","tag-lower-merion-headlines","tag-lower-merion-news","tag-lower-merion-township","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}