Tussey Mountain’s owners are undertaking a regional review process that will allow for the expansion of the ski and recreation resort’s lodge and other planned improvements.
Harris Township’s Board of Supervisors on Monday discussed Tussey Mountain’s application for a Development of Regional Impact that would bring the property into the Centre Regional Growth Boundary and Sewer Service Area.
Tussey, which is adjacent to the Regional Growth Boundary, has limited public sewer service resulting from a Department of Environmental Protection-mandated connection in the early 1990s, but the scope of the project would require it to be formally brought into the boundary and Sewer Service Area.
Josh Lincoln, managing partner of Tussey Mountain, first brought the proposal to the Harris Township supervisors in 2024 to gauge their interest in supporting it. He said one of his ownership group’s goals when they acquired it in 2022 was to revitalize a property that had “dilapidated considerably” since it was built in the 1960s.
Lincoln told StateCollege.com at the time that the concept plan included renovating and expanding the existing lodge “quite a bit” to include a venue for events and a new bar and restaurant, as well as redevelop outbuildings for improved ski school, ski patrol and race center spaces and potential small retail spaces.
“The lodge was built in the ’60s, and what it was built for is very different from how it’s utilized now,” Lincoln said on Monday. “So we we were going to have to expand the footprint of the lodge from what it is now.”
The project would be completed in phases and would not extend beyond the existing Tussey Mountain property, Harris Township Manager Mark Boeckel said.
Though the connection will have to increase from a small line to a new main, project engineer John Sepp of PennTerra previously said the EDUs — the measurement for sewage service — are “not going to be significant” after the expansion and that the University Area Joint Authority believes the impact will be serviceable.
The DRI process can be a lengthy one, however. The initial steps — garnering informal support from the host municipality and submitting an application to the Centre Regional Planning Agency for review and recommendation — have been completed.
Harris Township supervisors were generally in agreement that they will conclude the project has merit, the next step, but first had to send the application to the township planning commission for review and findings of fact.
“I think it has the merit,” Supervisor Dennis Hameister said. “We just have to convince our colleagues across the region, and I don’t see that being a particularly difficult situation, particularly with Tussey doing as well as it is.”
After the township’s decision on merit, the DRI will be forwarded to the Centre Regional Planning Commission for review and recommendations, then to the Centre Region Council of Governments General Forum for discussion. The individual COG municipalities will have an opportunity to review comments before the General Forum meets again to vote on the growth boundary/sewer service area expansion.
If approved, the final steps are a comment letter from the Centre Regional Planning Commission to the township and a developer agreement between the township and the property owner.
The process has no mandated timeline.
“”[Tussey] is a great community resource,” Lincoln said in 2024. “We’re hopeful that the community wants this [expansion] and is supportive of this.”
