From Lancaster Newspaper/LancasterOnline.com.  If/Whenever anyone knows, let me know when their last poker game will be...I want to try to make it there.  I guess RPT will have to start looking around for a Friday replacement:

Early this year came word of a puzzling proposal.

The intersection of Oregon Pike and Landis Valley Road was being eyed for a new shopping center.

But each corner of that Manheim Township crossroads is occupied. There's a hotel, homes and a cemetery.

So how could a new shopping center be constructed there?

Soon enough, the developer's solution was disclosed: the Quality Inn will be razed.

The demise of the 51-year-old hotel to make way for the Shoppes at Landis Valley is part of a trend changing the face of suburban Lancaster.

Long-standing commercial buildings are getting demolished and their locations redeveloped by investors who treasure not the structures, but the activity around them.

"You're seeing it more frequently now, because more and more prime corners already have something on them," said Bob Ramsay of the Lancaster County Association of Realtors' Commercial Industrial Council.

Stores, banks and restaurants want to come into suburban Lancaster because their demographic research shows they can succeed here, said Ramsay, the council president.

But while their studies of traffic counts, population and household incomes point them to the intersections in the suburbs, those corners are more likely to contain buildings than cornfields, he said Thursday.

"They want the location where their business will flourish. If something is already on it, they still want it. It's all location," said Ramsay, a Realtor with NAI Commercial Partners.

That's the way Jim Gibson saw it, as he scouted suburban Lancaster for places to put Integrity Bank branches.

He opted for the Eat'n Park site on Oregon Pike, and the sites of a BP gas station and car wash on Centerville Road.

All three structures will be razed, so Integrity can open branches there in June.

"I could go to other areas and do ground leases, which would be half the price I'll be paying, but I'd also get a third of the business," said Gibson, president and chief executive officer.

"If you put your store in an 'A' location, if you have 'A' products and services, and 'A' people, you get 'A' results.

"But sometimes a business will take 'A' products and services and 'A' people and put them in a 'B' location, and wonder why they can only get 'B' results."

"If I want to be a truly high-performing business," he said, "I have to have all three. I'm paying a very high premium for these locations, but I'm 100 percent convinced it's the only way to have a high-performing retail business."

The three-mile stretch of Oregon Pike between Lititz Pike and Landis Valley Road might be home to the most suburban commercial "raze-and-raise" projects here.

Among the first was the demolition of the Eden Theatre at Eden Road, which operated for 28 years. It was leveled in 1998 to make way for a Sheetz convenience store.

The vacant Hoss's restaurant at Route 30 was demolished in 2005, after standing empty for five years as Wawa tried to build there. A new building houses a Mattress Warehouse store.

At the Golden Triangle, where Oregon Pike meets Lititz Pike, Walgreens opened in 2006 after razing the vacant Chi-Chi's restaurant that had closed two years earlier.

Most recently, there's the Integrity Bank and Shoppes at Landis Valley projects.

Integrity Bank unveiled its plans last week. Plans for the Shoppes at Landis Valley, announced in January, won conditional final approval this week from Manheim Township.

Demolition is slated for early 2010. The CVS pharmacy, a Susquehanna Bank office, a Giant to Go convenience store, plus 27,000 square feet of stores and offices are due to open in fall 2010.

That's not to say that commercial suburban raze-and-redevelopment is limited to Oregon Pike.

Red Rose Commons, the county's third-largest shopping center, debuted in 1998, after a developer razed the empty Alcoa plant on Fruitville Pike, a suburban area at the edge of the city.

In 2006, Sheetz opened at Columbia Avenue and Centerville Road, having razed the Kreider Dairy Farms Restaurant which had been there for 18 years.

This fall, a Lowe's and Best Buy are opening where a developer razed the empty Kemps ice cream and juice plant on Hempstead Road, another suburban site at the edge of the city.

Dave Nikoloff, president of the Economic Development Co., observed that zoning and urban growth boundaries often steer redevelopment toward properties already in use.

"You have to go where you're allowed to go," said Mike LaCesa, Sheetz eastern region director of real estate. "In a lot of cases, that's not a vacant property."

"Lancaster County has truly embraced its agricultural heritage by preserving farmland. So you'll see more redevelopment of sites (here) than you might see in other places," said Giant spokeswoman Tracy Pawelski.

Of course, besides the proper zoning, the site also needs the all-important traffic counts and population criteria to convince a new developer that a fresh use will succeed there.

Donna Deerin Ward of LMS Commercial Real Estate, which is handling the leasing for the Shoppes at Landis Valley, said the Quality Inn site has those attributes.

She cited its location "at a busy signalized intersection in an area that has experienced a significant amount of residential growth over the past 10 years."

Ward added that the surrounding area "is understored" for the convenience-focused businesses such the ones the center will feature.

"The corner property was underutilized as an older hotel, but it will be very successful in its new format," she predicted.