Construction begins on luxury apartments at Oxford Valley Mall in Middletown

Work to develop the first of two apartment buildings planned at Oxford Valley Mall began this week and will continue for the next two and a half years. 

The plan calls for some 600-plus luxury apartments at the former Boscov's site at the mall complex in Middletown off Route 1 between Woodbourne and Oxford Valley roads.

The mall management released a statement to mall tenants Thursday outlining the project and urging them and their customers and workers to be careful around the construction site. 

Large earth-moving equipment has been visible at the construction site since Monday and several trees have been uprooted and a portion of the parking lot surface in front of the former Boscov's store was removed. The store is expected to be demolished as part of the project, but no timeline was available Thursday.

“We regret any temporary inconvenience you may experience during the construction.  While every effort will be made to provide continuous automobile and pedestrian traffic during construction, please be aware of any temporary parking restrictions, road/sidewalk closures or detours that may be posted, the notice stated.

Cornerstone Tracy is developing the project that will include two apartment buildings with hundreds of units on a 20-acre site. Cornerstone Tracy and the mall developer, Simon, first proposed the project in fall 2019 before the pandemic.

Simon spokesman Christopher Dudley said he could not comment further on the development at this time and referred requests for comment to Cornerstone Tracy, which could not be reached for comment earlier this week or Thursday.  

Previously, the developer said the project will be constructed in two phases. The first apartment building is expected to contain 391 apartments and the second would have 223, according to the developer's website. The buildings are expected to be four stories.

The highest structure at the mall complex now is One Oxford Valley, an office building which sits eight-stories high and shares the courtyard with the JCPenney store.

In October, 2019, Middletown Township approved a change to the General Business zone to allow multi-family housing to be built on tracts of more than 100 acres. The mall has a total of 135 acres and the supervisors and Simon at the time thought the new apartments would spur more business to the mall.

A spokesman for Cornerstone Tracy said at the time that the developer expected the apartments to attract young professionals or older adults, not many families with young, school-age children. The developer anticipated they would generate about $95,000 in additional tax revenue for the township and $1 million for the Neshaminy School District.

Traffic near Oxford Valley remains a concern

Traffic congestion remains a concern for area residents, particularly as two massive warehouses are planned for the nearby Reedman Toll property on East Old Lincoln Highway, not far from the mall.

At the Sept. 6 township meeting, several residents spoke against all the additional traffic the new construction would bring to already crowded Woodbourne Road and East Old Lincoln Highway. The supervisors tabled action on approval for the warehouses pending a meeting by the developer with nearby residents in the Langhorne Gardens section of the township. That community sits between the Reedman site and the mall along Woodbourne Road.

"There's going to be a boatload of traffic," Philip Wursta, the township's traffic engineer, said at the meeting about the warehouse project, combined with the apartment complex and other new development in the mall area. "It's definitely a problem."

The township supervisors then decided to table action on the warehouse development until the developer could meet with the nearby residents and further evaluate its plans.