Swarthmore Borough and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) began monthly meetings in March to lay the groundwork for a multi-use complex on the SEPTA commuter parking lot. The development would be part of SEPTA’s Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) program, which partners with municipalities to build apartments, public spaces, and businesses near Regional Rail stations to allow more people to live within walking distance of transit. In the coming months, SEPTA and the Borough will engage in community hearings, debate zoning amendments, and finally put out a call for designs.
“I can totally imagine something amazing and wonderful that will really add to the campus and town-center feel of Swarthmore, where you have a more lively downtown and more housing options for folks, [and] that really frames the train station and makes it really clear that you’re in a college town,” said Jennifer Dougherty, manager of real estate planning and development at SEPTA, in an interview with The Phoenix.
“The architecture is already so good in Swarthmore. I could just see something really complementary and beautiful going on that site, rather than just two big surface parking lots.”
Dougherty was hired by SEPTA to start the TOC program thirteen years ago, but resource constraints meant it took until 2024 for the guidelines document to be published. Ever since, SEPTA has been working with the municipalities holding Ambler, Langhorne, and Germantown Stations on plans catered to community needs such as parking and affordable housing. The proposed process to plan a development in Swarthmore — potentially involving SEPTA, the Borough, and Swarthmore College — would mark the TOC program’s first institutional partnership.
The college owns the student parking lot — and the area between it and the track — adjacent to the commuter lot, and has some representation in the development’s working group, according to Swarthmore Borough Planning Commission Chair James Levine.
According to Andy Hirsch, vice president of communications and marketing at Swarthmore College, the college may build a multilevel parking garage nearby to replace lost parking spots if the TOC plan moves forward. The college and SEPTA are currently working on a “joint, non-binding memorandum of understanding that will allow us to jointly explore site development options,” according to Hirsch. He said they were very early in the process, and focused more on the Planning Commission’s long-term goals for zoning and development.
The college’s involvement in the project as the owner of crucial land adds complications to the pre-planning process, including uncertainty as to how Swarthmore’s proposed development of Cunningham Field would affect the commuter lot’s estimated time of completion. Hirsch said the Planning Commission is interested in working on borough zoning modifications to allow for the Cunningham plan and any potential development of the SEPTA lot congruently. The SEPTA development will also require the zoning for the lot to change completely. In order to manage these difficulties, Levine said, the Planning Commission is looking to successful TOCs, as well as meeting monthly with the Borough Council, the Delaware Valley Planning Commission, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Authority, and the college. Once the Planning Commission is ready to make a recommendation, the Borough Council will decide on the final ordinance.
“We’ve really just had one meeting to discuss it so far and it was a productive meeting, but it’s going to be a months-long planning process, if not [longer],” Levine said.
Levine said he hopes the development will generate an increased tax base and more retail demand for the town center. He also said he thinks the development will have fewer delays and less community opposition than the 110 Park Ave complex because it doesn’t involve the demolition of an existing building.
Sony Devabhaktuni, an assistant professor of art at Swarthmore who researches urban infrastructure and economic, political, and social intersections with space, sees SEPTA as key to the college’s identity, connecting the campus to the town by sharing the station and linking it to Philadelphia. Swarthmore College, he said, has an interest in SEPTA’s and other regional transit’s long-term health.
SEPTA’s planning process requires community listening sessions long before Requests for Proposals for design plans are even considered. Dougherty said this helps to see what a community wants from a development, build trust, and confirm initial interest. She said SEPTA is going where they are invited by municipalities, and where they are able to develop based on internal parking needs. They have conducted license plate inspections at lots to see if commuters have other options such as using nearby stations or walking. If a plan is not right for the space, Dougherty said SEPTA has no problem not developing or waiting.
“We’re a patient landlord,” Dougherty said. “We can go away. If we want to revisit it ten years down the road when things change and people are more open to it or whatever, we can. If we hear, ‘We’re not interested, no thank you.’ That’s okay. We can go somewhere else.”
At a community engagement session in Langhorne, PA, Dougherty encouraged residents asking who would want to live in developments to look at themselves: “People who are going to end up living here are probably going to be very much like you, because they’re going to be looking for the same things that you want in a community.”
Devabhaktuni said the term Transit Oriented Communities raise the question of whose interests are being served with and how “community” is to be understood in the planning process. He agreed with Dougherty that community engagement is best at the beginning of development planning. He said SEPTA should be explicit about the values driving TOCs, and ensure “different stakeholders are part of the conversation.”
Another potential issue for SEPTA mixed-use developments is the frequent unreliable service on Regional Rail lines. Last October, federally mandated inspections caused up to hour-long delays across lines as SEPTA was forced to modify aging cars. Earlier, in July 2025, the agency announced massive cuts — including five Regional Rail lines — because of a structural deficit not addressed by Pennsylvania’s divided state legislature. Despite the fact that the Republicans didn’t agree to any long-term funding plan, Governor Josh Shapiro allowed SEPTA to dip into its capital trust fund as a stop gap for two years.
“This uncertainty of our funding situation always hangs over everything that SEPTA does, and we have to be really cautious and mindful of things,” Dougherty said.
Dougherty empathized with families depending on reliable transportation, especially those living in new TOCs. She said the Pennsylvania state legislature is encouraging SEPTA to find non-fare revenue sources, such as development of land. Without TOCs it would be harder to fund reliable service, although reliable service creates less risk and more demand for housing development; Dougherty described this as a chicken-and-egg scenario.
Devabhaktuni connected the importance of urban and transit-oriented development with the importance of reliable funding: “The street is the most important public space,” he said. “Taking advantage of its potential as part of the civic realm means rethinking the role of the car in cities and towns. Part of that rethinking is privileging access to public transit, which goes back to the question of funding.”
Dougherty encouraged students to come to the Planning Commission’s public meetings to share what they would like to see in a development on the SEPTA commuter lot. She suggested ground-floor retail and housing set aside for faculty as ways the college could benefit directly.
“There’s buildings in Swarthmore and on campus that are over 100 years old. I’m not comparing whatever gets built here to a Quaker Meeting House, but what we build and think about today has the potential to be here for so many generations after us, and form people’s lives that we haven’t even met or imagined yet,” Dougherty said. “What would it be like to open Swarthmore out to people who could never live here otherwise? What would that do for the trajectory of people’s lives?”
