A Second Life for the Autoport Property
For many years, the Autoport property on South Atherton Street was a familiar landmark in State College. It wasn’t fancy, but it had history. The Autoport was actually the oldest motel in Pennsylvania before it finally closed its doors in December of 2015. Since then, the property has mostly sat quiet, waiting for a new purpose.
Now, there are plans to redevelop the site.
The preliminary development proposal includes several new commercial buildings spread across multiple phases. The plans show restaurants with drive-through lanes, a cluster of small retail buildings, and a convenience store with a fueling canopy and 14 gas pumps. The goal is to bring activity back to the property and turn a long-dormant site into something economically productive again.
On the surface, that sounds like good news. Vacant land in a central corridor like South Atherton Street shouldn’t stay empty forever, and redevelopment is usually a positive step for a community.
But when I look at the plan, an important question comes to mind:
Is more retail space what State College actually needs right now?
The Autoport property is a great opportunity. It sits along one of the main gateways into town, and whatever gets built there will shape the area for decades. But good development isn’t just about filling empty land, it’s about matching development to the economic realities of the community.
Right now, the numbers suggest that State College may not need more retail buildings. What it may need instead is a different mix of uses, something that supports both housing and commercial activity.
The Autoport site could absolutely become something great. The question is whether the current plan is the best way to get there.
Understanding the Current Zoning
To understand why this project looks the way it does, you have to start with zoning.
The Autoport property sits in Planned Commercial 2 (PC-2) zoning in the State College Borough. On paper, PC-2 is designed for commercial activity along major corridors like South Atherton Street.
The borough zoning code describes the intent of the district as providing space for commercial uses along major highways and in designed shopping centers. It also emphasizes access management: making sure entrances, driveways, and roads are designed to prevent traffic hazards and reduce congestion.
In other words, the zoning assumes this area will primarily function as a commercial corridor.
There are also physical limits built into the zoning. One of the most important is building height. In the PC-2 zone, buildings are generally limited to 35 feet in height. That typically translates to about two to three stories depending on the design.
The zone also strongly favors commercial uses over residential ones.
None of this is unusual. Many towns created these kinds of zones decades ago when the dominant development pattern was shopping centers along highway corridors.
But zoning has a powerful effect on what actually gets built.
Developers don’t usually build based on abstract planning theory. They build what zoning allows and encourages. If a zoning district prioritizes commercial uses, most projects will be commercial. If residential is difficult or restricted, housing tends not to happen there.
So when we look at a development proposal, it’s important to remember something simple:
Developers usually build what zoning encourages, not necessarily what the community most needs.
The Proposed Development
The current plan for the Autoport site is divided into several phases, all focused primarily on commercial uses.
Phase One includes a 6,538 square foot convenience store with a fueling canopy and 14 gas pumps. This would sit toward the southeastern portion of the property and would likely become the first operational part of the development.
Phase Two adds a cluster of smaller commercial buildings. This includes a 2,033 square foot restaurant with a drive-through and five additional retail buildings ranging in size from 1,333 to 2,400 square feet.
Phase Three introduces another restaurant building, this one about 5,484 square feet, also designed with drive-through ordering and pickup canopies.
Phase Four appears to involve improvements to an existing storage building along with additional parking areas.
Beyond the buildings themselves, the site plan includes several infrastructure features. There would be a new signalized intersection on South Atherton Street, an access driveway connecting different parts of the property, and new landscaping with a stone retaining wall along the roadway frontage.
The overall design spreads multiple standalone buildings across the site, each with its own parking and drive access.
When you step back and look at the whole project, one thing becomes clear pretty quickly.
This plan is heavily focused on retail and commercial activity.
Convenience retail. Drive-through restaurants. Small commercial buildings.
From a zoning perspective, that makes sense. The PC-2 zone is designed to produce exactly this kind of development.
But the bigger question remains: is that what the State College market actually needs right now?
The Problem: State College Already Has Retail Vacancy
When evaluating whether a project makes sense, it helps to step back and look at the numbers.
Last year, Theodore Zimmer and I completed a vacancy study for Bellefonte and State College Borough using data from the Centre Region Code Administration fire safety permit system. The goal was simple: understand how much commercial space is actually sitting empty.
The results were interesting.
In State College Borough, retail vacancy is already close to the upper edge of what planners consider healthy.
The numbers from the report show:
- Retail vacancy: about 9% of retail units
- Retail vacancy by square footage: about 10%
Office space shows similar pressure:
- Office vacancy: about 14% of office units
- Office vacancy by square footage: about 9%
To put this into context, most planners and economists consider a 5–10% vacancy rate to be healthy.
A vacancy rates that is above 10%, it can start to signal structural problems in the market.
And that’s where State College is today.
Retail vacancy is already at or slightly above the healthy range. Office space is showing even more pressure in terms of the number of empty units.
That doesn’t mean the local economy is failing. State College is still a strong regional center. But it does mean something important for planning:
The borough may already have as much—or more—retail space than the market can comfortably support.
If that’s the case, adding large amounts of new retail space doesn’t necessarily solve a problem. It can actually make the numbers worse.
Why More Retail Could Make the Problem Worse
Retail doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
A community can only support a certain amount of commercial space, and that amount is largely determined by a few basic economic factors.
Retail demand depends on things like:
- Population size
- Local wages and disposable income
- Tourism and visitor traffic
- Overall consumer spending
These factors determine how much money flows through the local economy.
And that flow of money determines how much retail space can survive.
If population, wages, and spending remain relatively stable, the amount of retail space the market can support stays relatively stable too.
That’s why simply building more retail space doesn’t automatically create more economic activity.
You can build the storefronts. But you can’t force the customers to appear.
When too much retail space is built relative to demand, several things tend to happen.
First, you see more vacant storefronts.
Second, commercial rents drop as property owners compete to fill empty spaces.
Third, existing businesses struggle, because they’re now competing in a market with too many locations chasing the same pool of customers.
Eventually, you start to see underperforming shopping centers, half-empty plazas, and buildings that cycle through tenants without ever stabilizing.
Urban economists sometimes call this an artificial oversupply of commercial space.
It’s not that the buildings are bad. It’s that there are simply too many of them relative to the local economy.
That’s why zoning and planning decisions matter.
When we approve large amounts of new retail space in a market that may already be near its limit, we risk spreading economic activity thinner rather than strengthening the local economy.
