Feb 23, 2017 3 min read

For months, working out wasn’t working out at Park Place at the Meadow Lands. Permitting issues limited, then ultimately halted construction of the Planet Fitness gym in the mixed-use development off Washington and Racetrack roads.

The state Department of Environmental Protection found the developer, Metro Property Management, had “worked without permits or where work was not permitted” and banned the company from developing parts of the hillside property until the conflict was resolved. DEP’s action, taken last February, also cut into the large apartment/townhouse project near the gym.

All of that ended in mid-November, when permitting was approved. Construction resumed Thanksgiving week and three months later, the hill is alive with the sounds of labor. And the look of long-awaited progress.

Park Place is springing forth again. David Biafora, principal of Metro Property Management, said Planet Fitness “should be open by St. Paddy’s Day.” He also told business editor Michael Bradwell, in the Sunday edition of the Observer-Reporter, that 55 tenants are already residing in apartments and 66 other units are nearing completion.

Though it has been beset by delays, starting even before ground was broken, Park Place at the Meadow Lands has matured into a alluring destination since its October 2013 opening. It has an extensive range of offerings. You can fill your car there, and certainly your stomach at a variety of restaurants, all of them different. You also can reside, invest your money, educate your little ones and see your doctor on this 44-acre tract, which is mostly in North Strabane Township with a sliver in South Strabane.

Soon, apparently, you will be able to work out there.

This is a $25 million to $30 million project that appears to be paying off. Park Place is in an optimum location, easily accessible from busy Route 19 and a mile from Interstate 79. Its close proximity to The Meadows Racetrack & Casino and Tanger Outlets also may appeal to the thousands who patronize those establishments daily.

More is ahead for Biafora and his Morgantown, W.Va.-based company. He said a vitamin store and a physical therapy facility will come in as support retail for the gym, and he is working to bring in a massage therapy business and hearing aid store. And townhouses will be built once the apartments are completed.

Park Place is not the only impressive shopping complex to arise in central Washington County over the past four years. The Old Mill, less than three miles to the south along Route 19, appears to have a strong foundation on land previously devastated by mine subsidence. That’s where the Foundry failed nearly a decade ago.

At Thanksgiving, Route 19 commuters and fitness devotees had to wonder about the future of the upper end of Park Place. Though work on the gym continued into the summer, on the unrestricted part of the property, the incomplete structure sat idly afterward, during prime warm-weather months. Construction materials were stacked outside, unaccompanied by construction vehicles. Unearthed rocks littered the landscape. Apartment leases languished unsigned.

Billboards, which months earlier had trumpeted a September opening for Planet Fitness, had become a bad memory.

Then DEP permit approvals and developer diligence revived a project that has sprung toward a promising spring.