West Chester University presents College Arms redevelopment; residents press for parking, process changes

West Chester Borough’s Smart Growth Committee opened a lengthy public discussion Oct. 8 on a proposed redevelopment of the College Arms complex, a university‑owned student‑housing site on High Street, Rosedale Avenue, Sharon Alley and Linden Street.

The university’s representative, Brian Nagel, described a redevelopment concept that would replace the existing buildings with three new structures totaling about 420 upperclassmen beds, roughly 7,500 square feet of re‑sited retail, on‑site resident life offices and a welcome center at High and Rosedale. Nagel said the existing North Building has 60 beds offline, the South Building 15 occupied beds and the East Building 22 occupied beds, and that prior repair work to date totals about $6,500,000; an architect estimated restoring the North Building alone at about $14,300,000.

Neighbors and civic leaders pressed the university and borough for more information on parking, scale, traffic and the public‑notice process. Anne Carroll, chair of Civic Action Southeast, said the plan felt rushed and warned the proposal “is carving out an entire more than half of a square block” of the NC‑2 neighborhood conservation district for PUC2 zoning. Daryl Cook, a resident on Sharon Alley, asked for the age definition of “upperclassman” and for parking counts; other neighbors questioned whether 420 beds would overwhelm local parks, sidewalks and intersections.

Why it matters: the proposal would require a zoning change to create a Planned University Campus 2 (PUC2) district across the street from West Chester University’s main campus. Residents said the change could extend university land use and campus character into an established residential conservation district and that parking and pedestrian safety must be resolved before any rezoning is approved.

Discussion and next steps

Nagel said the university prefers townhouse‑scale buildings rather than a single mid‑rise and that the design attempts to transition from campus to neighborhood by breaking the front facades and adding courtyards, covered parking and controlled vehicle access from Linden and Rosedale. He described 91 on‑site…