TodaySinkhole opens near Meadowsgreen Townhouses
Bank has filed foreclosure paperwork
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Article RatingAnother sinkhole at Meadowsgreen Townhouses has closed a portion of the only paved road into the development and threatens a water line that serves two dozen homes there.
One lane of Enterprise Drive has been barricaded since Sunday, when heavy weekend rains opened a sinkhole and collapsed a portion of roadway about 120 feet from the place where an earlier sinkhole closed Enterprise Drive in April.
Complicating the problem this time around is a foreclosure action filed in Cumberland County Court by BB&T Bank against the Meadowsgreen developers, AH&T Developers.
Southampton Township Supervisor Tom Ginnick say he is to meet today with John Oliver, a consultant retained by the bank.
Ginnick and Shippensburg Borough Authority Foreman Louis Larson say they are uncertain when corrective work on the sinkhole will begin.
Larson says he had conversations with a local excavator retained to provide a cost estimate for repairing the sinkhole.
Larson said Tuesday that the water line is “threatened, but still intact.”
He theorized that when the sinkhole is dug up to be repaired, a bypass water line will be constructed around the site to maintain service to Meadowsgreen.
Larson said service could be interrupted for several hours or more while the bypass is put in place.
The new sinkhole is visible along the north side of Enterprise Drive. The road surface is broken and sunken as much as 8 inches in a semicircle that measures about 30 feet in length.
Mortgage
Cumberland County court records indicate AH&T developers owe mortgages, interest and late fees of more than $5 million to BB&T Bank.
In August, Southampton Township supervisors discussed pulling a $479,000 bond posted by AH&T. The bond would have been used to complete road construction in Meadowsgreen.
Ginnick says supervisors reconsidered in September after Oliver indicated the township would assume future responsibility for the roads if bond money was used for construction.
Neither Oliver or AH&T partner Frank Tramer was available for comment Tuesday by press time.
Meadowsgreen, situated on a 62-acre wedge of land between Routes 11 and 174 north and east of Shippensburg, was proposed as a 334-unit luxury townhouse development.
About two dozen of the one-story units have been completed. Tramer said in September that 16 units have been sold and two were being used as models.
