May 15, 2020 2 min read

The South Fayette Township Board of Commissioners approved a conditional use application Wednesday that would bring a retail and restaurant development to the site where the Star City movie house once stood.

The application is from Piazza Properties, and the proposed development on Millers Run Road would have five to seven buildings, according to Dennis Dunmire, a project manager for Pittsburgh-based Civil and Environmental Consultants Inc., with a mix of restaurant and retail establishments. All told, the development will take up 51,000 square feet.

The developers are still negotiating a shared parking agreement with UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, which has a facility adjacent to the property. With the conditional use permit having been approved, the township’s planning commission will consider a land development permit at its meeting later this month, and commissioners will consider it at its June meeting.

The township sold the property last year for $3.5 million to a Pittsburgh real estate development company. The township purchased it in 2009 with an eye toward making it a community center, but the plans never came to fruition.

In other business, the board will consider over the next month or so whether to call off its Fourth of July celebration due to the coronavirus pandemic, along with the Community Day celebration set for August. The township co-hosts a fireworks display with Upper St. Clair every year. John Barrett, the township manager, floated the possibility that fireworks could be shot higher so they are visible from greater distances, minimizing the need for people to cluster tightly together to view them.

Barrett also said Community Day might still happen Aug. 22, “but we’re still seeing how things evolve.” He explained that if the planned date is scrubbed, it might be pushed back to October and be on a smaller scale.

“Community Day is going to look a little different,” Barrett said. “We want to have some kind of Community Day, but we want to keep people safe.”