It’s been four years since Boston Market and Corner Bakery owner Jignesh “Jay” Pandya purchased the former Neil A. Armstrong Middle School building at 2201 Street Road, with grand plans to transform it into a mixed-use space called The Hub at Bensalem.
However, in the years that followed Pandya’s acquisition of the property in 2020 for $7.3 million, according to The Flynn Company, which represented seller Bensalem Township School District in the transaction, the building remained vacant.
Now, the fate of The Hub is looking even more bleak. In June, Pandya filed for bankruptcy and, last Friday, the property was expected to go up for sheriff’s sale.
Armstrong Middle School shuttered its doors in 2005, with the district moving its sixth-grade students to the elementary schools and the seventh- and eighth-graders to Robert K. Shafer and Cecelia Snyder middle schools. Fifteen years later, Pandya had a vision: to completely redevelop the site and bring The Hub at Bensalem to the community.
In 2021, Bensalem Council — with the exception of then-president Joseph Pilieri, who feared the project would be a traffic nightmare — approved Pandya’s land development plan, which included the creation of 11 buildings spanning 150,000 square feet. These buildings would offer office space, housing, a grocery store, restaurants, retail space and more, as well as house the Boston Market headquarters. However, following council approval, the project never got off the ground … and may never will.
Pandya’s background in business is said to be long-fraught with chaos, from lender lawsuits to accusations of pocketing large sums of money. The latest hurdle of Pandya involves a debt of $11.2 million by Rohan Group — the parent company of Boston Market — to a creditor, forcing him to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Additionally, he has filed for personal bankruptcy twice, with the second time occurring in February.
At this point, the fate of the former Armstrong building is unknown, though a number of residents are expressing relief over the possibility that The Hub at Bensalem may no longer be a possibility. Many are calling for the space to be transformed into something positive for the children of the township.
In response to news of the bankruptcy on social media, one resident commented, “I think Bensalem, Street Road, has enough supermarkets, housing and restaurants. It would be nice to make it a nice park for the kids. Pretty soon Bensalem will be looking like Mayfair.” Another suggested, “How about they put something there for the kids today. Roller skating, bowling, craft store, fresh market.” A third wrote, “This failed before it even started, thank God. We need more open space instead of more commercial and housing situations.”
Several residents wondered why the building couldn’t simply return to its roots and be reopened as a new middle school. After all, in 2022, Bensalem Superintendent Dr. Sam Lee discussed the district’s goal to have sixth-graders, who are still in the elementary school buildings, return to a middle school learning environment, which he said is more developmentally beneficial for them.
At the time, The Hub at Bensalem was still expected to move forward, so the district re-acquiring the former Armstrong building wasn’t an option. Rather, Lee suggested the expansion of both Shafer and Snyder, or the closing of Snyder to completely rehaul and expand Shafer.
Samantha Bambino can be reached at sbambino@newspapermediagroup.com
