SAVVY MAINLINE

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Multi-family housing boomlet in Tredyffrin? Big plans for Swedesford & Chesterbrook; New Village Play Space & a destination playground; Wins for Willows & Stoneleigh; Brain Fog; All-new Sporting Club & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

Holy Lazarus! A long-stagnant stretch of Tredyffrin has a pulse.

The owner of Swedesford Plaza wants to bulldoze the old HH Gregg and build luxury apartments in its place – 250 of them.
After approaching umpteen stores, fitness chains, health systems and grocers for its two empty anchors, Echo Realty is throwing in the retail towel on one of them. In partnership with Bozzuto, Echo plans to build a four-story, 250-unit apartment building at the old HH Gregg site, a permitted use under zoning code.

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Luxurious Life Time Athletic, DryBar coming to Ardmore; White Manor Country Club sold; local ‘FADD’ to fight ODs; a Broadway good-bye & more

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

The elite health & fitness company likes the Main Line so much, it’s putting not ONE, but TWO of its mega clubs here.

Our first Life Time – a scratch-built, 140,000 sq. ft. whopper with a “resort-like” outdoor pool and waterslides – will debut in June on Swedesford Rd. in Tredyffrin. (Life Time’s calling it King of Prussia, but the map says it’s Wayne, if only by a hair.)

And just announced: our second Life Time will be in Ardmore – an exclusive “diamond” level club (a notch above KOP’s “onyx premier”) in the former Macy’s building, one of two Grand Dames of Suburban Square. (The tall Times building is the other.)

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Villa & Shipley alumna/author J. Knoll comes clean about the gang rape in Luckiest Girl Alive, plus other brave souls & a mansion worth saving

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

We all thought Villa Maria and Shipley alum Jessica Knoll was living the dream.

Her debut novel, the Gone Girl-esque thriller, Luckiest Girl Alive, was an award-winning bestseller.

Lionsgate optioned the movie rights with Reese Witherspoon (!) to produce; Knoll wrote the screenplay.

Her publisher – Simon & Schuster, no less – green lit a second novel, due to drop in spring 2017.

Noll had made it in magazines, too, landing coveted senior editor jobs at Cosmo and Self.

Oh, and she was attractive and happily married, too.

At 32, she was, well, the luckiest girl alive, right?

No and yes.

Two weeks ago, Jessica Knoll dropped a bomb.

She published an essay admitting for the first time that the horrific gang rape in her novel was based on her own experiences.

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Heroin strikes again: RIP Tyler McCloskey (Stoga ’12); Phoenixville’s Colonial Theatre goes BIG time; baby- & dog-napping news

/ By Caroline O'Halloran / /

The Tredyffrin and Conestoga communities are mourning yet another young life tragically lost.

Tyler McCloskey, 22, died of an apparent heroin overdose over the weekend.

Tyler was the younger brother of Reilly McCloskey, the 2010 Stoga grad/photographer who only a few weeks ago shared his own addiction struggles with SAVVY Main Line.

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