2021 Non-residential Construction Report Released
Posted April 14, 2022
Chester County Planning Commission's Senior Housing & Economic Planner, Libby Horwitz, recently presented the results of the County's 2021 Non-residential Construction Report.
Overall in 2021, Chester County saw an increase in non-residential square footage built, from 961,413 square feet in 2020, to 1,139,151 square feet in 2021. Of this new building square footage, institutional square footage played the biggest role, with commercial square footage coming in second.
West Chester University's "Commons" property located in West Chester Borough was the largest major non-residential project in Chester County in 2021, with New Garden Township's Springer Property following closely behind — both accounting for more than 100,000 square feet. Other major projects included Sadsbury Township's Agricultural Support Building, a Proposed Self Storage Facility in West Whiteland Township, and West Goshen Township's Greystone Elementary School.
While the data collection process in 2020 was comprised of municipal confirmation and in-person site visits, the 2021 data used a new process including Nearmap imagery analysis (which includes frequently updated, high resolution aerial imagery), as well as in-person site visits.
The county began collecting non-residential construction data in 2016. Since then, Chester County has reported almost 6-million feet in non-residential construction added.
Learn more about non-residential construction in Chester County and to view the 2021 report.