They know the developers will come.
They will follow the tourists, pilgrims and bikers who make their way to the site near Shanksville, Somerset County, where United Flight 93 crashed into a field on 9/11.
Thousands of people -- 167,000 last year alone -- have visited the temporary memorial to the 40 passengers and crew.
But planners say that once a permanent national memorial is built, 500,000 can be expected in each of the first few years and as many as 250,000 people annually after that.
The visitors will expect hotels, restaurants and stores on the roads leading to the memorial.
But what local residents want -- and what their boroughs and townships can support -- is of concern to Somerset County officials.
"We know the visitors are going to come," said county Commissioner Pamela Tokar-Ickes. "They are already coming. We're inviting people to the table to discuss what they want to preserve and how to preserve it."
Residents want to maintain the area's rural character, and planners want to ensure that any development does not detract from the solemnity of a national memorial.
"They look at other places like Gettysburg where the development came up around the battlefield area without much thought in advance," said Jim Klein, a principal with Lardner/Klein Landscape Architects, the Alexandria, Va.- based firm conducting the study. "They have a great opportunity to do this right and bring in the kinds of services they might need and do it in a way that might make everybody comfortable visiting the corridor."
Zoning not only option
The study of 18 miles of roads that wind through six townships and two boroughs should be completed by June.
The corridor follows a path from the Somerset turnpike interchange, to Routes 281, 219 and eventually Route 30, where the entrance to the permanent memorial will be placed.
"We're looking at ways to help the property owners that live along those routes and business owners to kind of improve the quality and the character of the routes," Klein said.
Klein has been analyzing the existing conditions along the corridor and what changes are likely to occur.
"Farmers want to keep farming and rural residents want to keep it the way it is, and that's hard work," Klein said. "Our goal is to guide them in a way that's more sympathetic to their concerns."
Chief among those concerns is zoning.
But zoning won't be the end result of the study, officials said.
"There is a big, negative connotation to zoning," said Jim Marker, Somerset County Commission chairman. "It's just one land-use tool."
However, Nila Cogan, president of the Somerset County Farm Bureau, is worried about zoning.
"Our main concern is that there be no zoning, that property owners have the right to do with their land what they want," said Cogan, who with her husband, Larry, operates Hilltop Growers, a greenhouse and produce operation in Somerset Township, about three miles off Route 281.
She doesn't believe development along the corridor would affect agriculture, as most of the area's farms are located off routes 30 and 281.
"I can see hotels and that type of thing in Stoystown, along Route 281," Cogan said.
She suggested a development buffer zone, starting at least five miles before the crash site, as part of the area's historical preservation.
"Eighty years from now," Cogan said, "if someone comes out here, they can see how it looked on the day of the crash."
Klein said there are many options officials can choose without zoning.
"They want to make sure their property rights are respected in the future, and we're trying to do that," Klein said of residents. "We're going to give them several different tools and techniques that don't involve zoning at all."
Klein pointed to conservation easements that would give farmers tax advantages if they keep their land rural. He said grants can help existing companies improve their businesses.
Those incentives can help the area keep its identity but grow at the same time.
Philosophical about development
Bruno Policicchio has operated Bruno's Barber Shop on Boswell's Main Street for 60-plus years, and he's philosophical about the potential development the Flight 93 National Memorial may attract.
"I don't think it would hurt anything to have (commerce) along Route 30," he said. "Close to where the crash site was, I don't think they should put any big places close by. Keep it the way it was, the way it is."
Carole Duppstadt agrees.
Duppstadt, the owner of Duppstadt's Country Store along Route 30 in Stoystown for 35 years, acknowledged the increased traffic en route to the nearby temporary memorial has boosted business at her store.
But she hopes the section of Route 30 closest to the planned building site for the memorial will stay pristine.
"I think they should keep its natural setting," she said of the woods and fields stretching along the Lincoln Highway.
Hotels and restaurants inevitably will be built.
"If they are going to have to have accommodations, keep it in good taste," Duppstadt said.
No one wants tacky souvenir shops.
"I don't think they should do it like it is in Gettysburg," Policicchio said. "That's too much commercialism."
Marker understands that people are wary.
"They don't want to see any change," he said. "Without anything in place, it will change, and change drastically."
Should commercial growth start to spiral, Marker said, "It will be too late."
Need for infrastructure
Some local officials would welcome development, but they say it can't happen without infrastructure.
"There's no sewage available, and Lincoln Township, we don't even have enough water to supply the people that are in the township now," said township Supervisor Craig Eppley. "I wish it was the exact opposite."
Deep mining has affected the township's water supply.
ppley points out that residents can't even get high-speed Internet access.
"There's a lot of things that hamper our township and neighboring townships that the infrastructure doesn't support," Eppley said. "There's nothing in the foreseeable future that says things are going to change. "
Tokar-Ickes agreed that lack of infrastructure would be a consideration for developers.
Somerset Borough and Somerset Township have the most developed infrastructure right now, she said.
The National Park Service for years has been planning a way to buffer the memorial from development. The park service plans to purchase 1,300 acres for the memorial and the roads needed.
They are working out agreements with property owners of 900 more acres to keep the land as it is now.
"If the landowner has a farm, we would like to keep it as a farm," said park Superintendent Joanne Hanley. "I would think we would have the same objective as the landowners have to preserve the rural area."
Jeffrey Reinbold, Flight 93 memorial project manager, has been working closely with the county on the corridor study.
He said the National Park Service began talking with local officials about development in the early years of memorial planning.
"A lot of people told us they would like to see economic benefits from the visitors that will come there," Reinbold said. "We know some development will come. We're not exactly sure how much but some will come. It's inevitable. We wanted to avoid 15, 20 years down the line people looking back and saying, 'We should have done something about this.' "
