Home Care In Smyrna, DE

A fast food restaurant with Cajun flair and a fitness center that promises to be judgment free are planning to open near Route 13 in Smyrna.

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen is proposed for a site between Firestone and Waffle House just east of Route 13 on South Cory Lane.

DSM Commercial is building a 1,992-square-foot restaurant with drive-thru, said Jeremy Rothwell, Smyrna director of planning.

DSM didn’t immediately respond to requests for comments about a planned opening date for the restaurant.

Rothwell said delays in the start of construction have been caused by multiple changes to the building design.

Founded in 1972, Popeyes has about 3,600 restaurants in the U.S. and around the world including 13 in Delaware. The menu features food inspired by Cajun and creole flavor including New Orleans-style spicy fried chicken, chicken tenders, chicken sandwiches, fried shrimp, fries, side dishes and biscuits.

Messages for more details on the Smyrna restaurant were not immediately returned by Restaurant Brands International which owns the brands Popeyes, Burger King, Tim Hortons and Firehouse Subs.

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Planet Fitness proposed behind Firestone

Construction is scheduled to start in a few weeks on Planet Fitness behind Firestone east of Route 13 on the east side of North Cory Lane, close to Route 1.

Plans are to complete the building in the fall of 2024, depending on the weather, said Lou Ramunno, president of Lenape Properties, the owner of the 2.05-acre site.

The building will be one floor with 16,915 square feet.

Planet Fitness has 11 locations in Delaware and more than 2,400 in the U.S. and Canada.

National Fitness Partners will own and operate the Smyrna center.

“We provide a unique environment in which anyone can be comfortable," said Kelly Walker, director of public relations and communications for National Fitness Partners. “We provide a non-intimidating, affordable, high-quality fitness experience.”

Along with state-of-the-art cardio and strength equipment, Planet Fitness offers a 30-minute express circuit, numerous flat-screen televisions to watch during workouts and fully-equipped locker rooms.

PF Black Card members also have access to massage chairs, hydro massage beds, a relax space wellness pod and a recovery lounge.

Reporter Ben Mace covers real estate and development news. Reach him at [email protected].

While the planned Duck Creek Regional Library in Smyrna has been more than a decade in the making, three main factors in the last few years pushed the project to the construction starting line.

And when the 22,000-square-foot building is finished, there will be major changes in who operates the library and how the annual budget is funded with a new tax structure for some property owners.

About 15 years ago, a group of citizens formed the Friends of the Duck Creek Regional Library with the goal of raising funds for construction of a larger building.

The current library at 107 S. Main St. is about 4,900 square feet, but about 2,400 square feet is in the basement, unsuitable for most library activities because of accessibility requirements. While the population of the area has been booming, the library hasn’t been expanded.

The Delaware Council on Libraries recommended a new, larger library in the Smyrna area to the Department of State.

The Friends group also wanted to rally funding support from the entire area the library serves, basically the Smyrna School District in southern New Castle County and northern Kent County, from the Maryland line to the Delaware River.

Now, the library is operated by Smyrna in a town building and funded by the town, county and state division of libraries.

The Friends group pushed for a regional library with funding from New Castle County, Kent County and town governments in the library district, Friends group consultant Kay Wheatley said.

Previously, New Castle County didn’t contribute to the Smyrna Public Library, which is in Kent County. Wheatley said members of the Friends of the Library group persuaded New Castle County leaders to help.

“About 25% of the library district is in New Castle County, and the county has agreed to contribute to operations annually,” said Wheatley, who has decades of experience in the construction business and service to libraries in Rehoboth and Selbyville.

The Friends of the Duck Creek Regional Library group raised about $800,000 through donations and fundraisers, and the state designated $4.4 million in bond bills from fiscal years 2012 to 2019.

But that was a long way from the estimated $18.8 million cost.

Then in 2022, the funding floodgates opened. With requests and applications from the Friends group and help from government leaders, the project received $7.8 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds, part of the federal COVID-era programs to spur infrastructure construction and jobs. Another $5.2 million came from the state legislature in the bond bill for fiscal year 2023.

“The bond bill money has to be matched,” Wheatley said. “The American Rescue Plan Act funds count as a match. That really removed a burden. Those were funds we didn’t have to raise from the community.”

Now the construction costs are nearly covered along with the donations from residents and businesses and grants from county and town governments. The Friends of the Duck Creek Regional Library is pursuing donations to fund the rest, about $1 million.

Control of library changing with new source of annual operating funds

The next step for the Friends group was finding a way to provide annual operating costs because of the planned change from a town-operated library to a regional library with a board of directors that reports to Kent County.

Smyrna budgeted $401,000 this year for library operating funds including paying the staff.

When the new Duck Creek Regional Library opens, the town will be out of the library business, not responsible for the new building or annual operating funds, and the staff will no longer be town employees.

The majority of operating funds will be provided by two sources: the existing Kent County library tax paid by county property owners outside Smyrna town limits and a new library tax for Smyrna property owners.

In the new system, property owners in Smyrna town limits will pay a new library tax, the same as property owners outside town limits in the Smyrna School District in Kent County. The tax is about $15 per year for the owner of a property or home with the average assessed value in Smyrna town limits, according to the county.

The other change in the county’s tax system is that the library taxes collected in each school district will go to the library in that district instead of a general fund redistributed to the libraries.

Finding a site for the new library and celebrating start of construction

The location was the third piece of the puzzle. Smyrna mayor and council approved a 99-year, $1 lease for the site on town property, what’s now the public parking lot on South Main Street, about one block north of the current library.

The parking lot was expanded last year to South and East streets, more than making up for the spaces that will be lost for the new building.

After securing most of the construction funds and the source of annual operating funds, the Friends of the Duck Creek Regional Library held a groundbreaking Oct. 11, a celebration of years of work by the volunteers, forming partnerships with local, county, state and federal government leaders.

Friends group president Kathy Messer said to be nearing the start of construction is “surreal.”

“I don’t know how many meetings I’ve been to, lobbying for this,” Messer said. “When there would be a change on town council or Levy Court after an election, it sometimes felt like we were starting all over again, having to convince new leaders about our idea, but we did it.”

Messer and Wheatley credited Joanne Masten for her perseverance while leading and now assisting the Friends group while serving as Smyrna mayor and now Kent County Levy Court commissioner.

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Construction is scheduled to start the first week of December, Wheatley said, with an estimated completion within 12 to 14 months. Fencing around the site has been installed, and the parking lot isn't accessible from Main Street, only from South and East streets.

“Children and families will benefit from these investments for generations to come,” said Gov. John Carney in a press release, adding that libraries serve communities as hubs for job training, employment searches, education, and during emergencies like for COVID-19 test kit distributions and vaccination sites.

What will the new library include?

At about 22,000 square feet, the new one-floor library will be nearly nine times larger than the main floor of the Smyrna Public Library.

The new library will include the former office building at 22 S. Main St. which will be renovated and attached to the new library.

The main change compared to the current library will be more space — for books, computers and events. Two meeting rooms are planned, one with seating for about 150 and another room with seating for about 50. A teen lounge and children's wing are planned, along with an outside seating area. A drive-through lane is planned for picking up and returning books.

Messer said the additional square footage will allow the library to more easily host community meetings, health screenings, hobby groups for activities like sewing or yoga, and accommodate larger gatherings of children and teens.

What will happen to the old library building owned by the town? It's also home to the Smyrna Opera House on the second and third floors. Mayor Robert C. Johnson said one proposal is for the Opera House to use the space for offices and storage.

New school and school additions planned:Details on a new 4th-5th grade school, school additions and 1,100 homes planned in Smyrna

When the new library opens, the Friends group will turn over the keys to library’s board and pivot to a more traditional role of library support groups, organizing fundraisers to supplement funding and acting as advocates for library programs.

For information on contributing, see the Friends website, http://www.duckcreekregionallibrary.org or email [email protected] or write to the Friends at PO Box 218, Smyrna, DE 19977.

Reporter Ben Mace covers real estate and development news. Reach him at [email protected].

Local and state officials and industry professionals joined DEMEC and its members to cut the ribbon on its training yard in Smyrna. | PHOTO COURTESY OF DEMEC

SMYRNA — The Delaware Municipal Electric Corporation (DEMEC) cut the ribbon on its first in-state training yard earlier this month, with aims to bring apprentice and journeyman lineworkers from eight municipalities together for upskilling.

The training yard is designed to support workforce development, with a series of utility poles, transformers and substation infrastructure installed on site to host classes for its membership. Phases will also include climbing, bucket trucks and meter training.

The 5-acre facility is at the Smyrna Business Park off Wheatleys Pond Road. DEMEC bought the land next to ShureLine Electrical in April 2021.

“As a joint action agency and not-for-profit, DEMEC is always looking for economies of scale opportunities to bring our members additional savings,” DEMEC President and CEO Kimberly Schlichting said in a statement. “Safety and education are part of our organization’s core values and lineworkers are the backbone of public power. We are pleased to support our members’ workforce, resilience, and reliability through a diverse training yard.”

Lineworkers are typically sent to out-of-state programs that may last up to two weeks for training that is required for the field. Before this project Delaware had no facility of its own to send lineworkers, and DEMEC used three utility poles behind its Smyrna headquarters for small training sessions.

Outdoor hands-on training may range between 10 to 20 students, but apprentice training classes are expected to be small for a stronger instructor-to-student ratio.

The facility will offer new and seasoned lineworkers training for 66% savings to its eight municipal members.

“It provides our electric crews with local training that keeps lineworkers close to home and significant cost savings to the community,” DEMEC Board Chair and Middletown town manager Morris Deputy said in a statement. “This training yard is the perfect example of the types of value-added shared services DEMEC provides as an integral partner of our community electric utilities.”

Established in 1978, DEMEC is a joint action agency that represents eight power-producing Delaware towns and cities that serve 99,200 people. Members include Clayton, Dover, Lewes, Middletown, Newark, New Castle, Seaford and Smyrna.

SMYRNA, Del.- Community members are noticing some of their recycling left behind on pick up days, and it's because Delaware's Solid Waste Authority is piloting a new program in town.

Workers from a company known as the Recycling Partnership have been going through community members' recycling bins before collection time to see if the bins are 'contaminated' with non-recyclables, or wrongly placed recyclables.

Business Director with DSWA, Mike Parkowski, said the Solid Waste Authority is covering the cost of the cart-tagging.

The Town of Smyrna was selected to test the program following a DSWA audit that identified elevated recycling contamination rates in the town. Parkowski also noted that high contamination rates are present in all three Delaware counties.

The orange tags, labeled 'Oops!,' serve to highlight problems and potential solutions, but some said it's only been an inconvenience.

"It kind of rubs me the wrong way because I've seen times where they make a big deal between the trash and the recycle and then the same truck picks them both up and puts it all in one," said Smyrna resident Greg Parsell.

Several communities members have been questioning the new program on Facebook. One person saying, "I guess I’ll just stop recycling and throw it all in the trash can," after receiving a tag.

Others, like Linda Von Essen, said they don't mind some constructive criticism.

"Don't just automatically think this is all about you," Von Essen urged. "This is about recycling and the way it's going into the environment."

DSWA acknowledged how the task of sorting can be tedious. Parkowski said if you're not up for it, there is no point in recycling anyway.

"If you are not doing it correctly, you are not helping the process," he assured. "It makes other people's recycling not recyclable if you contaminate it by putting your trash in there...especially if you put things like food or yard waste."

The pilot program is six weeks long, it ends in mid-October. If the results are as intended, Parkowski said cart-tagging could be brought to other Delaware communities in the future.

WESTOVER, MD– The Maryland Office of the State Fire Marshal is investigating a barn fire that resulted in $1 million in losses Friday.

The blaze was reported around 10:51 p.m. on March 15 at James Nelson Farm, 9773 Stewart Neck Road, according to the State Fire Marshal.

Officials say the property owner observed a tractor on fire and attempted to put it out with a portable fire extinguisher. When this failed, the flames reportedly spread to the adjacent storage building and other farm equipment.

Princess Anne Volunteer Fire Department crews responded, with 57 firefighters working to suppress the flames over three hours, according to a press release.

Investigators identified a preliminary cause as an unspecified electrical issue with the tractor, a 1100 Case International.

Losses are estimated at $1 million.

No injuries were reported.

Drivers have probably noticed the clearing of trees and the demolition of two old buildings on Route 13 south across from Helen’s Sausage House, north of Smyrna.

What’s planned at the site is a Dollar General on 3.32 acres north of Black Diamond Road, said Alec Davis, a planner at the New Castle County Department of Land Use.

The entrance won’t be on the corner of Black Diamond Road and Route 13 because that northwest corner has some wetlands, Davis said.

The entrance/exit will be north of Black Diamond Road on Route 13, not at a crossover, with only right turns from Route 13 into the parking lot and right turns out of the parking lot onto the highway.

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The plan calls for a one-story, 10,640-square-foot commercial retail building with about 1 acre of impervious surfaces including the parking lot.

Toward the corner of Black Diamond Road, there will be a conservation easement of about 1.4 acres, part of the total of 2.01 acres of open space and landscaped surfaces including existing trees, with a stormwater area of .07 acres.

With the clearing of the site underway, the company plans to break ground on the building "in the coming weeks," according to the corporation's public relations department. No opening date has been set.

Company already has three locations in Smyrna-Townsend area

Dollar General is a familiar site in the area, with two stores a few miles south in Smyrna and one in Townsend a few miles north.

As for the reasons for opening a store between Smyrna and Townsend, the company said, “In selecting store sites, we take a number of factors into consideration, carefully evaluating each potential new store location to ensure we can continue to meet our customers’ price, value and selection needs.”

On average, each Dollar General store employs about six to 10 people.

The company has 51 locations in Delaware with more than 19,200 across the United States including Dollar General, DG Market, DGX and pOpshelf stores.

Reporter Ben Mace covers real estate and development stories. Reach him at [email protected].