West Pikeland Township's Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 on Monday, October 19, to put its municipal building at 1645 Art School Road up for public bid, a move that could evict a community theater company that has called the Chester Springs building home for 12 years and recently spent roughly $400,000 renovating it. SALT Performing Arts shares the building with the township's administrative offices, and its leaders say they were blindsided by a plan to sell the property out from under a decade-long licensing agreement.
The vote, first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer, sets in motion a sale the township says is necessary to help cover the cost of a new police headquarters. Township officials plan to sell the property for at least $2 million and use the proceeds to offset the price of acquiring and renovating a replacement facility at 1001 Kimberton Road, a 14,383-square-foot commercial building on 7.23 acres that last sold in November 2018 for $1.5 million, according to listing records from Compass and the township's own meeting notice.
A Police Force Stuck in a Converted Chicken Coop
The urgency traces back to last November, when West Pikeland voters approved a ballot referendum raising property taxes specifically to preserve the township's own police department rather than disband it in favor of state police coverage, following a petition signed by more than 1,000 residents, as reported by WHYY. Having voted to keep the department, the township now faces the problem of where to put it: its officers currently work out of a converted former chicken coop on the Art School Road property, across from the shared municipal and SALT building, according to township history documented by Historic Yellow Springs.
Supervisor Bryan Maher said the sale was necessary to renovate the new building and get the police force accredited. He called on SALT and Historic Yellow Springs to work out a solution, and said his priority was supporting the community built through the new purchase while also preserving SALT. The township considered disbanding its police force altogether several years earlier before residents pushed back and the referendum reversed course.
The $400,000 Gamble SALT Made on a Building It Didn't Own
SALT Performing Arts has operated inside the township building since 2014, producing 90 main-stage shows and running educational programs that have put more than 14,000 children on stage. The nonprofit also runs community partnerships with Acting Antics, the Chester County Food Bank, the Domestic Violence Center of Chester County, and the VFW, and buses unhoused veterans to the facility for private holiday shows, hot meals, and necessities.
In 2023, township officials told SALT that a brick wall and skylight needed replacement. The company spent two years fundraising and finished the renovation project in September 2025, spending about $400,000 on safety improvements in exchange for a 10-year, fixed-rent license agreement with the township, which took effect January 1, 2024. SALT also took out a $200,000 construction loan personally guaranteed by its president, Lauren McComas.
“SALT took a risk investing nearly half a million dollars in property it did not own, trusting the township's good-faith agreement,” McComas said. She told supporters Tuesday that SALT was feeling hopeful, but that the situation remained uncertain. McComas has also warned that if the township does not honor the license agreement and evicts the company, SALT itself would end.
A Legal Bind Over Post-Bid Conditions
Township Manager Joan Blatcher has said the board cannot simply add a condition requiring a buyer to honor SALT's license agreement after already voting to put the building up for bid. She cited Section 1503 of Pennsylvania's Second Class Township Code, which requires municipal real estate valued over $6,000 to be sold to the highest bidder through public advertising — a process that restricts how supervisors can impose new terms without modifying or reissuing the bid. “That is the best we can do according to the regulations, the lovely Second-Class Township Code that we all have to abide by,” Blatcher said, according to the Inquirer's reporting.
The bid packet itself does include SALT's licensing agreement, and prospective buyers must tell the township whether they would assume its terms or prefer to terminate the lease with 30 days' notice. The board may reconvene Thursday to consider requiring a buyer to honor SALT's agreement outright; Blatcher said the date and time of any such meeting would be published online. Blatcher also said by email that she knows of no township staff member or supervisor who wants SALT to relocate, and that the township gave the company time to seek funding or a partnership with Historic Yellow Springs.
Residents Push Back, Call It a “Bait-and-Switch”
Not everyone on the board or in the audience is satisfied with that explanation. Resident Valerie Dixon called the decision “a bait-and-switch and a slap in the face” and condemned the township's move to sell without guaranteeing the license would be honored. A young SALT participant named Eloise told supervisors that SALT was her second home and that she hoped the board would do what was morally right.
Rob Merow said SALT has asked the township not to “double dip” on donors' recent investment in the building and to let the company continue its arts work uninterrupted. The township purchased the property from Historic Yellow Springs, Inc. in 2005 to establish its administrative offices and community space, and had not planned to sell the building when it entered the license agreement with SALT in May 2023.
A Historic Backdrop to the Dispute
The property sits within Historic Yellow Springs, a 142-acre historic district that hosted North America's first military hospital, commissioned by George Washington in 1777, and the municipal building itself is on the historic register. The site contains two buildings: West Pikeland police occupy the smaller single-story structure, while the larger building houses township administrative offices, SALT, and a meeting room.
SALT's regional footprint extends beyond Chester Springs — the company also operates a second black-box venue, The SALT Box, at 19 Hagerty Boulevard in West Chester. The Art School Road location's artistic pedigree got a spotlight recently when a teenage performer who trained at SALT won a Barrymore Award for Outstanding Leading Performance in a Musical. West Pikeland Township, home to just over 4,000 residents across roughly 10 square miles according to the 2020 U.S. Census, has previously leaned on state grants to help cover police costs, including a $54,005 Local Share Account award in March 2023 for a new patrol vehicle — a fraction of what a new headquarters and the pending building sale now demand.
