Millcreek Township, Pennsylvania

“Millcreek, being a community of choice for residents, is really about our symbiotic relationship with the City of Erie. They’re doing a lot of great things with economic development for major businesses and our role is to provide the amenities and secondary businesses to support those efforts. We’re two municipalities but one community, really trying to work and plan together. To be honest, historically, there have been some conflicts between the city and suburban municipalities, mostly based on personalities. In the last four years, I’ve taken office on our three-member board and Erie has a new Mayor, Joe Schember, and we’ve proactively worked to coordinate more and get beyond past issues. It’s really about new leadership and our staff focused on working together. So, we really appreciate that partnership with the City of Erie.” BVM: Do you have opportunities for mixed-use development? Waldinger: “We have about 16,000 residential parcels in the township and we’ve recently seen an upsurge in multi-family development. A lot of that has come about because of our comprehensive plan. With that plan, we’ve created a future land-use map to create some new residential opportunities; some new mixed-use opportunities. To fully realize that, we do need to have a new zoning code in place and we’re working now to get a consultant to develop that. But the board has been very receptive to rezoning properties from their current zoning, if they fit the future land-use model. So, we’ve been able to take advantage of some properties that were exclusively commercial, that have now had proposed and approved developments for multi-family. We’re trying to support more of those complementary uses, especially along our major corridors. “We don’t have an actual downtown area. We have Presque Isle Park, and Peninsula Drive, running north/south, is the main gateway to the park. Just south of the park, West 8th Street is the main retail hub for the district with a lot of small, local stores and a couple of anchor plazas owned by Chip Riehl (Shops at the Colony) and Chris Conrad (West Erie Plaza), who make a point of welcoming and MI LLCREEK TOWNSHI P , PENNSYLVANI A Courtesy of Waldameer Park