Wawa’s expansion into Northeast Pennsylvania will continue in Dickson City.
Representatives from the popular gas station and convenience store chain attended the Dickson City Planning Commission’s November meeting as they look to build their newest location on Bell Mountain off of Cold Spring Road, said planning vice chairman and council Vice President Robert Hall.
The Dickson City Wawa will be the third Wawa slated for Lackawanna County, with the Southern Pennsylvania-based chain also planning to open locations on Meredith Street in Carbondale Twp. and at Moosic Street and Meadow Avenue in Scranton. In Luzerne County, Wawa recently opened a new location in Wilkes-Barre Twp. on Dec. 6, with plans for two other locations in Dallas Twp. and Plains Twp.
The proposed Wawa in Dickson City would sit above the McDonald’s on Cold Spring Road, Hall said.
There is no firm timeline yet, “but it’s on the books, and it’s moving forward,” he said.
“That is a good indicator,” Hall said.
The development that will house the future Wawa will be subdivided into three lots, he said. Hall was not aware of any plans for the other lots.
As a step toward developing Bell Mountain, Dickson City Borough Council voted last week to approve a resolution and agreement with Fore Up Realty LLC, 7 Oakwood Drive, Scranton, for the borough to submit a highway occupancy permit to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation to construct a sanitary sewage line under Business Route 6 around the intersection of Commerce Boulevard. Fore Up Realty is required to prepare all applications and accompanying documents, provide all required bonding and insurance and bear any and all costs incurred, according to the agenda item. Fore Up Realty owns a large swath of Bell Mountain, including the land currently used as a quarry as part of the highly visible development.
Although Fore Up Realty is installing the sewer line at its own expense, PennDOT requires an agreement with Dickson City, borough Manager Cesare Forconi said.
The realty firm would also be responsible for any damages to the state-owned Business Route 6, he said.
With the sewer line agreement, Fore Up still needs to complete a land development plan by working with the borough’s planning commission, Forconi said. Once the planning commission’s review is complete, the plan will go before council for approval, he said.
As part of the land development plan, Fore Up will have to show all of its utilities and how they will reach and serve the property, he said.
“They’re just trying to get ahead of the curve,” Forconi. “They would need that in order to get the land development — it wouldn’t be approved without having access to some place to take your sewage.”
Fore Up is currently in the subdivision process, and once that’s complete, it will move onto land development, Hall said.
If the subdivision process passes planning in January or February, the land development plan will likely take three to four months, Hall said.
Both Forconi and Hall noted their enthusiasm for development on Bell Mountain. That section of the mountain has been “a little bit barren” since Walmart closed there, Forconi said.
Before it opened its current Walmart Supercenter at 900 Commerce Blvd., Walmart had a smaller store on Cold Spring Road that abruptly and permanently closed Dec. 17, 1996, after multiple boulders – some larger than automobiles – crashed down Bell Mountain, striking the store and several parked cars. Walmart had opened the store in 1993.
In August, Jim Marzolino, the manager of Fore Up Realty, had said the project would address those issues.
If the Wawa comes to fruition, it will not only benefit Dickson City from a tax-base perspective, but also by attracting more people to Dickson City, Forconi said.
“Hopefully it’ll add some aesthetic value there, also, by cleaning up that area, making it more developed,” he said. “It’s all positive there.”
Fore Up’s land is the last large tract of undeveloped land in the borough, Hall said. A Wawa coming to Dickson City is great, he said.
“People now will maybe shop at our stores, eat at our restaurants, get gas at our Wawa,” he said. “That helps our tax base grow. Where other towns have a shrinking tax base, ours is expanding.”