Walk North Wayne Avenue this summer and it still feels like the one block downtown that time forgot. Dave Abraham has run Tiger Shop out of the same storefront for 56 years. Paolo's Cucina has been slinging pizza under Michael Coppola's family name for three decades. Teresa's Café and Teresa's Next Door anchor the corner they've held for years. The buildings are low, the awnings are familiar, and nothing about the block suggests it's about to change.
That stillness is exactly why the story matters. Two blocks over on Lancaster Avenue, downtown Wayne has already been quietly rebuilt. A new municipal parking lot went in near the train tracks on West Avenue late last year, replacing the old lot near Boyd's, which is slated to make way for 60 West, a luxury condo project priced at $2 million and up with underground parking. This spring, Radnor swapped its downtown meters for a pay-by-plate system run through ParkMobile. Downtown Wayne has been modernizing itself in pieces. North Wayne Avenue, the stretch locals call Restaurant Row, was the holdout. Now it isn't.
The Proposal on the Table
The address is 118 and 120 N. Wayne Ave, two one-story, century-old buildings that currently house the live-music venue 118 North and a now-vacant space last used by Omega Dry Cleaners. Developer Joe Smogard wants to tear both down and put up a three-story mixed-use building in their place: ground-floor retail and restaurant space, a second-floor office for his own businesses, and four one-bedroom apartments with rooftop decks and a green roof on top.
Smogard has said publicly that he intends to keep 118 North on-site, in a slightly smaller, purpose-built space on the new ground floor, and that he's extended the venue's lease through construction to make that possible. If it goes through as planned, this would be the first ground-up teardown-and-rebuild on North Wayne Avenue itself. Radnor's own comprehensive plan for downtown actively encourages exactly this kind of dense, retail-plus-residential building along this corridor, which is part of why a project this size is even on the table here.
Getting there hasn't been simple. When the plan first went before Radnor's Planning Commission in February, commissioners tabled it over how the proposed green roof would handle runoff. Chair Lane Vines put the concern bluntly at the hearing:
"That's now moving new water onto North Wayne that never existed."
Smogard's team went back to the drawing board with township engineers, returned in the spring, and won unanimous preliminary approval from the Planning Commission at the end of April. Radnor's Zoning Hearing Board had already granted seven of Smogard's eight requested waivers, covering stormwater management, the width of the rear alley, and the rear-yard buffer between the new building and its neighbors. Four rear parking spaces were approved for the future apartment residents, on the condition that the second-floor office never runs more than six employees at a time. That's how tight the parking math is on this particular block.
Why 831 Signatures Might Not Be Enough
By June, the project reached Radnor's Board of Commissioners for a meeting that ran more than three hours. Wayne resident Connie Congleton presented a petition opposing the plan with 831 signatures. Air testing at 118 N. Wayne Ave, ordered as part of the environmental review, found volatile organic compounds, the kind of chemical residue common in old dry-cleaning operations, at levels too high for residential use but acceptable for the commercial use the building currently has. That single detail explains something residents might otherwise miss: this site was never a simple renovation candidate. Whatever goes up there next has to account for what's already in the ground.
The harder truth for opponents came from Ward 1 Commissioner Jack Larkin, who pointed out that the township can't legally reject a plan just because a lot of people dislike it or because officials would rather protect the businesses already there. Current zoning already permits three-story mixed-use buildings on this stretch of the avenue by right, and Smogard's application follows that code closely enough that the Planning Commission was, in Larkin's words, obligated to move it forward. Larkin also noted that some of the personal criticism aimed at Smogard by email could end up helping the developer's case, since it could be read as evidence of bias if commissioners tried to block the project on sentiment rather than code.
That's the mechanism worth understanding if you live near this block. Radnor is in the middle of a multi-year planning effort called A Vision for Wayne, meant to rewrite the zoning and design rules for exactly this kind of corridor, including questions of housing, historic character, and building scale. It just isn't finished yet. Township officials have told frustrated residents that the place to push for different rules is that process, not this particular application, because the current zoning already allows what Smogard is proposing. The new rulebook is being written while an old one still governs what happens on the ground.
What Changes for the Businesses Next Door
For the merchants who share the block, the concern isn't really about the design of the building. It's about surviving the year or more it takes to put it up.
- Cathy Fiebach, owner of Main Point Books next door, is bracing for blocked sidewalks, lost parking, and construction noise inside her store, along with the risk of water intrusion, dust, or debris reaching her shelves.
- Dave Abraham, whose Tiger Shop occupies a building he's owned for 56 years, worries about what heavy demolition next door could do to a structure that old, and predicts months of cranes, dumpsters, and a dozen lost parking spaces before it's finished.
- Andy Dickerson, a partner in Teresa's Café and Teresa's Next Door, has said the construction could gut his lunch business badly enough that he's weighing whether to renew his lease at all.
- Michael Coppola, the second-generation owner of Paolo's Cucina, points to a narrower worry: even after the new building's four resident parking spaces go in, they sit behind a single-lane alley that several businesses already share, and he expects trash trucks, deliveries, and staff to keep it blocked regardless.
Chris Todd, who has run a restaurant and bar on this stretch for 25 years, put the trade-off simply: "Growth is important to the town, but how painful is this going to be?"
The Kearns Wrinkle
The most unusual detail in the whole story belongs to Ken Kearns. He's a partner in 118 North, the venue whose future sits at the center of the debate, and he also founded and still runs the Wayne Music Festival, one of downtown Wayne's signature annual events. He's president of the Wayne Business Association too, and the association put out a formal statement raising concerns about both the short-term disruption to shopping, dining, and parking, and the longer-run question of what North Wayne Avenue becomes once the building is finished. Kearns himself has declined to comment on Smogard's plan directly. The man whose business stands to reopen in a brand-new space is also, through the organization he leads, one of the loudest institutional voices questioning how it gets there.
If You Live Near This Block
Nothing has broken ground yet. As of its most recent hearing this summer, the application still needs a final vote from Radnor's Board of Commissioners. Smogard has estimated it could be another year before construction even starts, and separately put the demolition-and-build timeline itself at around 18 months once it does. That leaves a real window before any of this touches daily life on the avenue, and it's worth using it. Radnor Township posts commission and board agendas ahead of every meeting, and the Vision for Wayne planning process is still taking public input on the zoning questions that will shape whatever comes after this project. If you want the fuller blow-by-blow of how the June meeting went, Patch's coverage is a good place to start.
For now, the block looks the same as it always has. That won't last much longer, and the businesses that make it worth walking down in the first place already know it.
If you're weighing what any of this means for property values, timing, or your own plans on the Main Line, The Sivel Group tracks these shifts block by block, not just headline by headline.
SELL SMARTER. BUY SMARTER. MOVE SMARTER.
