A new effort hopes to show that King of Prussia is more than a mall

To shoppers, they are three intoxicating words:

King of Prussia.

Locally, and even to buying enthusiasts abroad, King of Prussia means the pinnacle of retail therapy.

The reason is as obvious from the air as it is at ground level: nearly 3 million square feet of tantalizing buying opportunity arranged amid marbled floors, sun-splashed atriums, and the splish-splash of decorative fountains under one seemingly endless roof.

With its own iPhone app and easy access from the Schuylkill Expressway, Route 202, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and Route 422, the King of Prussia mall draws 25 million visitors a year.

But chances are a good many of them would not even be able to name the township in which the mall sits, or much of anything else in the form of business, recreation, employment, or entertainment offered in Upper Merion's 16 square miles.

Not only does it have 28,395 residents, it has office and industrial parks, schools, churches, and a convention center that soon will include a casino slots parlor. In all, King of Prussia has 50,000 employees, making it the region's largest suburban employment complex, said Barry Seymour, executive director of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.

"But you don't have a perception of that," he said, largely because the uses are spread across the township without much definition.

A recognition of that, and a concern that being content with the status quo could one day doom this Montgomery County suburb that has more of a small-city feel, has triggered a reimagining of King of Prussia - the town, that is.

The effort - including a renewed push to bring the SEPTA trolley line that runs between Upper Darby and Norristown into King of Prussia - is aimed at better defining what King of Prussia is and what it should be, and then deciding how to close the gap between the two.

Should office towers rise where one-story restaurants and warehouses now stand? Are tax policies prohibitive? Does the current zoning make sense? How can such an auto-dependent community be retrofitted to become more pedestrian-accessible?

All of it - and more - will be the initiative of a new entity, the King of Prussia Business Improvement District, or BID. It is a private, nonprofit organization representing - and financed by - the 262 owners of commercial property within its designated 1,900 acres.

"If you stand still or you don't try to do something better, eventually somebody will surpass you," said Walter "Skip" Kunda, operator of a family-owned beverage company with King of Prussia roots since 1920 and treasurer of the BID board.

Said BID chairman Richard Kubach Jr., owner of a Best Western hotel and meetings center across from the mall: "When people think of King of Prussia, a lot of people think of the mall. We want them to think of a lot more."

The BID's creation - more than two years in the making - was enabled by an Upper Merion ordinance adopted by township supervisors last May and later by an overwhelming endorsement of property owners within the improvement district. Each will be assessed a BID fee - amounting to roughly 4 percent of its total tax bill. A board of directors was elected in September, and an executive director was hired in January.

He is Eric Goldstein, former executive director of the University City District, a special-services nonprofit organization focused on fostering and sustaining commercial revitalization, job creation, and an improved quality of life in a 2.4-square-mile section of West Philadelphia.

A landscape architect by training, Goldstein, 42, of Moorestown, also has worked for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society as project manager for its public landscapes department, and for a real estate development company in Trenton.

What he is not is "much of a shopper," Goldstein unapologetically admitted in a recent interview.

Still, King of Prussia held an appeal, prompting him to apply for the BID job.

"The planner in me got very excited about the future of this place and the impact we can make here," Goldstein said.

Besides someone with nonprofit and for-profit experience, the BID wanted "somebody who really had a can-do attitude," Kubach said. And someone who does not require a lot of company.

"Eric is going to be the only staff person for a while," Kubach said, saying fees assessed on properties in the BID would yield about $1.1 million a year. Goldstein hopes to eventually augment that with grants, private contributions, and "other types of public support."

He has his work cut out for him.

The BID has a five-year life. An extension would require approval of another ordinance by the township and again a majority show of support by the BID's property owners.

"This gives us five years to prove to the business community that this is a worthwhile endeavor," Kubach said Friday.

That is a relative blink of an eye considering the weighty items the BID has on its agenda.

Among them is the long-discussed extension of the Norristown High-Speed Line, or Route 100 Trolley, into King of Prussia. An extensive planning effort for what was then expected to be a $300 million project was undertaken in 2003 - and ultimately "left on the shelf," largely because of the region's preoccupation at the time with the ambitious (and now dead) Schuylkill Valley Metro proposal, said Byron Comati, director of strategic planning and analysis for SEPTA.

(That new train line would have linked Center City to Reading. A similar concept, this time using the existing R-6 line but extending it beyond Norristown to Reading, has been in the planning stage for the last 17 months. The impetus is much-needed relief for the heavily trafficked Route 422.)

The 4.9-mile Norristown High-Speed Line extension to King of Prussia will get a renewed look, probably starting in May, Comati said. SEPTA will lead the effort with the help of a consultant and paid for with $625,000 in federal, state, and local grants, including a $12,500 commitment from the BID.

"From a planner's long-range perspective, it's a very, very viable project for the region, largely because you can see what the market is," Comati said, noting that SEPTA ferries 7,500 people daily to King of Prussia via six bus routes.

And it would link the city and Delaware County to Montgomery County. "That's powerful when you can get those three markets all tied together," Comati said.

Long range indeed. Assuming funding for the project could be found, planning, environmental review, design, and construction would take close to 10 years to complete, Comati said.

That is why the BID also will look for ways to produce more immediate evidence of its existence - beyond the fee it assesses property owners.

That is going to include gateway enhancements such as signs and plantings so that visitors have no doubt when they have arrived in King of Prussia - the town, not the mall.

That, in turn, will be good for both, said Bob Hart, the mall's general manager, who added:

"To grow and increase the value of the properties - that's the ultimate goal."