Aldi, restaurants to replace Dover's old Playtex factory

Jerry Smith | The News Journal

Show Caption Hide Caption Dover's old Playtex plant gives way to Capital Station Plans are in the works for a developer to demolish the old Playtex factory in Dover and build the Capital Station shopping and restaurant development, which hopes to revitalize the site of the abandoned factory at the intersection of U.S. 13 and Division Street.

A site that was once known for employing hundreds and providing revenue for the city’s coffers, but now is best known as a visible blight, will soon get new life.

Developers are moving forward with the Capital Station commercial project on the northwest corner of North Du Pont Highway and Division Street, adjacent to Maple Parkway where the old Playtex factory now stands.

The 65,000-square-foot development calls for an Aldi grocery store to be the anchor business, with restaurants and retail stores to fill the other four proposed buildings.

Dover Mayor Robin Christiansen said the city has been in talks with the developer – Pennsylvania-based Whitewoods Capital Advisors LLC – for more than a year and both are ready to proceed.

A project was previously proposed in 2014 under a different developer that would have brought two restaurants, a drug store and other retail shops to the location. Christiansen said the developer pulled out because of a concern about the number of city code and ordinance issues required to complete the project.

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Brian Finnegan, project manager for Whitewoods Capital Advisors LLC, believes Capital Station will be a gateway to downtown Dover and to the city's governmental center. He said neighbors are ready to see the "eyesore" Playtex building replaced.

While Christiansen doesn't disagree that the old factory is an eyesore, he has a different view of the transition.

"In the almost 70 years that [Playtex] was there and generating tax dollars and providing jobs, it wasn’t an eyesore," he said. "But when they packed up and left, then it became just that."

The mayor said that from 1939 until it closed nearly two decades ago, Playtex provided the city with taxes and jobs and used a lot of electricity generated by the city. He said that across the entire Playtex operation throughout the city, anywhere from 500 to 700 jobs were lost when the factory closed.

He has high hopes for the city's newest commercial development on that site.

"Hopefully, Capital Station will be a phoenix rising from the ashes to create the same amount of jobs and same diverse, good-paying jobs that the Playtex plant created so many years ago," Christiansen said.

While the developer and city officials are excited to see the development take shape, there is a lot of work to be done before construction begins. Last week, Neuber Environmental Services Inc., out of Pennsylvania started prepping the site for demolition.

"We've been scanning the building and cleaning out areas so the demolition will go a lot smoother," said site superintendent Ken Green on Wednesday. "We need to clear a path inside so it's easier to separate brick and building materials during demolition."

Finnegan said that his company has a management plan for abatement and demolition of the 150,860-square-foot building, the old water tower and number of smaller buildings on the site. The process will take eight to 10 months, with hopes of beginning construction in late spring 2018, he said.

"The [Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control] Certificate of Completion Remedy lays out the steps you have to follow and we're doing that," Finnegan said. "We will monitor groundwater going forward and we have a management plan already in place."

A Brownfield Remedial Investigation performed in 2013 at the site found that the surface soil in two locations contained compounds that presented a potential risk to commercial use of the site. No contaminants were detected in the subsurface soil, however.

The investigation also found that groundwater on the site contained volatile organic compounds that measured higher than Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control groundwater standards. Metals including iron and manganese that measured over DNREC standards were also detected in groundwater. A report concluded that the elevated metals were likely caused by the presence of petroleum compounds.

"We have a solid plan to address demolition and abatement," Finnegan said. "There are environmental concerns and we plan to approach this process in the right way."

Once the demolition is complete, construction will begin on the commercial development that calls for the 21,998-square-foot Aldi store, a 6,080-square-foot restaurant and three restaurant/retail buildings totaling 36,922 square feet.

In addition to the buildings, 417 parking spaces are proposed, as well as three entrances and one exit-only drive.

According to the development plan, the first entrance is from the southbound lanes of North Du Pont Highway as a right-in/right-out entrance. The second full entrance is located off of Division Street on the south side of the site. The entrance from Maple Parkway across from the Adult Probation & Parole building is a full entrance. The exit-only drive onto Maple Parkway is across from the Wells Fargo Bank entrance.

The development plan calls for the entrances to be linked by two primary drive aisles that meet roughly in the center of the site.

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The proposed plan would add a sidewalk along the North Du Pont Highway and Maple Parkway frontages, but not the Kings Highway frontage.

Christiansen believes the neighbors and existing businesses in the area will reap the benefits once it is built, much like the Towne Point and White Oak areas did when Burlington and Big Lots were built in 2016. A Longhorn Steakhouse is in the works there now, while a Panera Bread is planned as well.

"That’s what is going to happen with Capital Station," Christiansen said. "It’s going to take what a lot of people think is a property that has blight on it and it’s going to disappear. The folks at Luther Towers are excited because they are going to have businesses close by where they can go grocery shopping. It’s going to help revitalize the surrounding area."

And once again, it is going to have businesses there that will make Dover a shopping and eating destination, the mayor said.

Reach Jerry Smith at jsmith17@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JerrySmithTNJ.