A Tennessee-based packaging company is closing its plant in Barrington, Camden County, laying off 126 employees amid the business’ larger restructuring plan.
Workers at International Paper’s Barrington facility, whoconvert containerboard into boxes, are expected to be laid off on Sept. 24. The site is expected to close at the end of August, company spokesperson Jessica Seidner said.
The closure follows “a strategic assessment” of the Barrington facility, and International Paper’s larger regional footprint, according to a layoff notice filed with the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
“Based on the results of that assessment, and in order to operate our packaging business effectively to support our customer needs now, and in the future, we made the difficult decision to cease operations at our Barrington location,” the notice reads.
International Paper, headquartered in Memphis, was incorporated in 1941. As of December, the company had 62,602 employees — nearly half of which are based in the United States — and roughly 190 packaging mills, as well as converting and packaging plants, and recycling facilities across the country.
The company has several locations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including in Kennett Square, Lancaster, Reading, Bellmawr, Thorofare, and Vineland, according to a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
As part of its restructuring, the company announced this month the closure of four facilities, including the Barrington site, to “focus investments on the highest-value opportunities.” The company announced several more facility closures last year.
“These are difficult but necessary decisions that strengthen our network, focus investments where they create the greatest value and position International Paper to better serve customers and compete for the long term,” Tom Hamic, president for packaging solutions in North America, said in a statement.
In an April earnings call company leaders said the business had recently been facing financial pressure frominflation, the conflict in the Middle-East, and weather disruptions. The business brought in $23.63 billion in net sales last year.
International Paper announced in 2025 that it had acquired DS Smith, a U.K. packaging business, in a deal that was valued at $7.1 billion. Earlier this year, the company announced it would split into two separate businesses: one dedicated to the North American market and another for Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. The process is expected to be complete by the end of 2026 or early 2027, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
This Fourth of July will be unlike any in recent memory. As the nation marks its 250th anniversary, Philadelphia and the surrounding region are packed with celebrations — and fireworks displays. From the city and suburbs to South Jersey and the Shore, there are dozens of opportunities to catch a show.
Whether you’re staying in Philadelphia, heading to the suburbs, or spending the holiday down the Shore, here’s where to find Fourth of July fireworks across the region.
Wawa Welcome America: 🕙 July 4, 5 p.m. 📍Christina Aguilera and Philadelphia native Jill Scott headline a concert followed by fireworks, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, Pa., 19130, 🌐 july4thphilly.com
Conshohocken Fireworks Display: 🕙 July 3, 9:15 p.m., 📍The fireworks will take place at Sutcliffe Park, but the borough is closing the park and surrounding areas to the public due to the size of the display. (They advise you to watch the show from another vantage point in town.), 🌐 conshohockenpa.gov
Grocery Outlet bargain market is closing dozens of stores nationwide, including eight in the Philadelphia area.
The closures were first referenced earlier this week in the company’s earnings report. The California-based grocer recorded an operating loss of $221.7 million last year, much of which it attributed to “certain underperforming stores” that will now close.
These include five Grocery Outlets in South Jersey, two in Philadelphia, and one in Kennett Square, according to real estate marketing released Thursday.
A company spokesperson did not return a request for comment about when the stores would close.
The impacted Philly-area stores are located at:
4004 U.S. Route 130, Delran
401 Harmony Rd., Gibbstown
345 Scarlet Rd., Kennett Square
190 Hamilton Commons Dr., Mays Landing
2017 W. Oregon Ave., Philadelphia
2524 Welsh Rd., Philadelphia
3174 U.S. Route 9 S., Suite 5, Rio Grande
677 Berlin-Cross Keys Rd., Sicklerville
People shop at a Grocery Outlet in Philadelphia in 2022.
After the closures, the chain will still have several locations in the city, collar counties, and South Jersey.
Grocery Outlet calls itself an “extreme value retailer.” It was founded in 1946, and has expanded from 128 stores to 570 stores over the past two decades. Many locations are operated by entrepreneurs who live nearby.
“Consumer pressure intensified, federally funded benefits were delayed, and competition grew more promotional in the fourth quarter,” Potter said in a statement. “In response, we have begun to sharpen our focus on what matters most: delivering clearer value and a better in-store experience.”
Customers and employees inside a Grocery Outlet in Philadelphia in 2023.
A Wakefern spokesperson said the company planned to refocus on its flagship stores in South Philadelphia and Rittenhouse, as well as its growing online business. The move, spokesperson Maureen Gillespie said, would be “a positive reset that allows us to preserve and elevate the in‑store tradition while growing the brand’s reach in meaningful new ways.”
She didn’t even like diamonds. That was the funny thing. Costume jewelry, yes. A pair of handmade earrings, certainly. Diamonds, well, she’d always found them a bit showy.
She liked this one, though, because it had been Jim’s.
It was a man’s ring, a 1.3-carat diamond, round cut, set on a simple gold band, and when her husband, Jim, passed away a few years ago, Cindy Ware made it hers.
Cindy Ware of Kennett Square with diamond inherited by her late husband, Jim. She lost it but it was discovered embedded in a neighbors shoe in Florida. Photograph taken at her home on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026.
She wore it everywhere — to the grocery store, to lunch with friends, to her morning water aerobics class. It brought her comfort. A few times a day, she would look down at it, think of Jim, and smile.
“I never took it off,” says Cindy, who is 82 and impossibly sweet and sometimes wears a sweatshirt that says I’m often mistaken for an adult because of my age.
So when the diamond went missing last December, shortly before Christmas, Cindy was devastated. She felt sick, like she’d let Jim down.
She thought to herself: “Cindy, you just lose everything that’s important.”
A 60-year love story
Cindy Ware met the man she would marry in Pinkie Patterson’s second-grade class. This was in Mount Holly, N.C., in 1951. On Valentine’s Day of that year, while out sick with the mumps, Cindy had been allowed to come to the school parking lot to collect her Valentines.
The teacher sent a little boy out to deliver a box of treats.
He had a buzzcut and a little cowlick and his name was Jim.
Childhood photograph of Jim Ware the late husband, Cindy Ware of Kennett Square. She lost the diamond he inherited but it was discovered embedded in a neighbors shoe in Florida. Photograph taken at her home on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026.
Well, Cindy’s mother thought Jim was about the most precious little boy she had ever seen. And Cindy — who until that point hadn’t given it much thought — soon decided that maybe she agreed.
By high school, they were an item — inseparable, Cindy explains, “except when we were mad at each other and dated other people.”
They got together for good during college, and theirs was a 60-year love story.
They married in 1965. They moved to New Jersey, then to Pennsylvania. They raised three boys. Their boys grew up and had children of their own. A few years ago, they settled into a retirement community in Kennett Square, where they liked to take morning walks and eat pizza with mushrooms and pepperoni.
“We never needed a lot of anything else,” Cindy says. “Just the two of us.”
Wedding photograph of Jim (late) and Cindy Ware of Kennett Square. She lost a diamond he inherited but it was discovered embedded in a neighbors shoe in Florida. Photograph taken at her home on Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2026.
When Jim got sick, in 2020, it was horrible.Months of doctor’s visits, then specialist visits. Then, finally, hospice.
“The worst year of my life,” Cindy says.
Not long after Jim passed, in 2023, Cindy was getting the family’s affairs in order. One day, at a local bank, she opened an old lockbox and discovered a diamond ring — an heirloom that had been passed down through generations of Jim’s family.
Back when she and Jim married, and they didn’t have much money, he had told her she could have her pick: a ring or a car. “That’s a no-brainer,” she had replied. “I want a car.”
Still, something about the diamond spoke to her.
She plucked it from the lockbox and slid it onto her middle finger, and that’s where it remained for the next three years.
The missing diamond
She was having lunch with a friend last December when she glanced down and realized it was gone.
The diamond had dislodged from the setting, and it was nowhere to be found.
“I was just bereft,” Cindy says.
It could have been anywhere. In her car. In the grass outside her home.
At one point, she wondered whether she had lost it during her water aerobics class at the retirement community’s swimming pool. Things could get a little intense with the arm exercises. Maybe it had jostled loose and sunk to the bottom.
But what could be done? Even if they drained the pool, the likelihood of them ever finding the diamond was minuscule.
Her sons urged her not to worry, assured her that it was OK. There was always the chance that it might still turn up.
But weeks passed, then months.
Eventually, she resigned herself to the fact that the diamond was never coming back.
‘That might be a diamond’
One afternoon a couple weeks ago — on a pool deck 1,100 miles from Kennett Square — a man named Coleman looked down and noticed, lodged in the tread of his Lands End pool shoe, what appeared to be a small piece of glass.
Or wait. Maybe it was some kind of gem.
At a pool in South Florida earlier this month, a Pennsylvania man looked down at his pool shoe and discovered what at first appeared to be a gem or piece of glass stuck in the tread.
For days he had been wearing the pool shoes — to the pool, through locker rooms. He had stuffed them into his gym bag, into a suitcase. Earlier that day, he had worn them on a walk in the gritty sand of a South Florida beach.
He also wore them back home in Kennett Square, where he lived in a retirement community. In the afternoons — after the ladies finished their morning water aerobics — Coleman’s group played pool volleyball. He always wore his pool shoes during games.
Now, sitting poolside in Florida, Coleman’s husband, John, examined the stone and said, “Uh, that might be a diamond.”
Intrigued, but not yet convinced, the couple went the following day to a Pompano Beach jeweler.
Nine times out of 10, the jeweler told them, when people think they’ve found a diamond, it turns out to be nothing.
This was not one of those times.
Yes, the jeweler said, it was a diamond, all right — 1.3 carats, nicely colored, likely from the 1950s or ’60s. Probably worth a bit of money.
Tickled, Coleman posted a photo of the diamond to Facebook.
A diamond in the sole of his shoe
Back in Pennsylvania, Cindy was on the phone with her good friend.
It was Valentine’s Day, and the two were chatting about this and that, and at the end of their conversation, in passing, her friend mentioned a man from their neighborhood, Coleman, who had just posted a photo from Florida.
Apparently, he had found a diamond lodged in his shoe.
As it happened, Cindy and Coleman knew each other well. They lived just a couple streets apart, worked out in the same pool. Once, when Jim was in hospice, Coleman and his husband had brought her flowers.
Cindy tracked down the photo. Saw the small gem lodged in her neighbor’s pool shoe.
Impossible, she thought.
She dialed Coleman’s number.
“Hello,” she said, “I think you have my diamond.”
The return
It was confirmed a day later.
Back from Florida, Coleman delivered the diamond to Cindy’s house, along with a collection of yellow roses. Neither of them could stop smiling.
Best they can tell, the diamond fell to the bottom of the community pool, where Coleman — while playing pool volleyball — happened to step on it, just right. How it had remained lodged in his shoe’s tread for days or weeks or months — across multiple states — was anyone’s guess.
“It could never happen in a million thousand years,” Cindy says.
Says Coleman, “It does make you sit back and think for a minute about what is going on here.”
As you might imagine, their story has been the talk of their retirement community. Everyone, it seems, wants to talk about the little diamond that traveled halfway across the country in a shoe.
As for the diamond itself, Cindy has decided that it‘s time to pass it on, to her oldest son.
“I can no longer be trusted,” she jokes.
In the meantime, she has stopped wearing it to water aerobics.
After John Michael Bontrager came home to Pennsylvania from Wall Street to start an advice firm for big investors, he located his company in Kennett Square, “America’s Mushroom Capital” and the most populous of the old factory and farming towns along Old Baltimore Pike in southern Chester County.
Bontrager and those who joined him prospered. In 2018, he stepped down as founding head of investment-risk adviser Chatham Financial, which now employs 850 at its campus just east of the square-mile borough of 7,500.
Now, he’s devoting himself to the redevelopment of Kennett Square and nearby towns.
Using his own fortune, donations, and state and local government funds, Bontrager and his allies have developed a string of projects — restaurants, hotels, and nonprofits — under the loose umbrella of his Square Roots Collective. Their affiliates have purchased 2% of the town’s houses to redevelop as rentals. Their goal: Make the area more attractive to college-educated young people, while also boosting the quality of life for longtime residents and working people.
In December, the borough council endorsed Bontrager’s “public, cultural, and social impact initiatives,” calling them “key to shaping the inclusive community.” They voted unanimously to ceremonially rename Birch Street, an industrial road Bontrager has visibly transformed, as “Bontrager Walk.”
Bontrager agreed to take questions at his Kennett Square office. His daughter, newly designated co-CEO Stephanie Almanza, and his chief of staff, Luke Zubrod, a Chatham Financial alumnus who serves on the borough planning commission, sat in.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Why did you start local projects while you were still building your company?
[I wanted] to convince people we wanted to hire, between the ages of 25 and 33, that Kennett is a reasonable place for them to live. How do we make this attractive for people to move here and to bring people who grew up here back?
Thirty years ago when I came here, it was a great community for families. But it was harder to convince singles and couples with no kids.
I read sociology, for example Chuck Marohn’s Confessions of a Recovering Engineer; Yoni Appelbaum’s Stuck about zoning; The Logic of Failure by a German neuroscientist [Dietrich Dorner].
The elements I came up with: A community is totally interconnected, people and organizations. All decisions have ripple effects. When communities focus only on solving the near term problem, it’s probably not going to be good.
For example, we have about 30% of Chester County “preserved.” Well, it’s great to have open space. But if you take a third of your land out of commission, without providing for housing, housing prices will go up dramatically. And taxes.
Mike Bontrager (center, in grey jacket) with family members (from left) Stephanie, Kymm, Luis, Cruz, Katherine, Mason, Mike, Dot, Lauren, and Willie.
How do you solve issues in concert?
Collaboration, trust, working together. A lot of elected officials are volunteers. It’s easier to focus on one issue at a time and react to the three or four people who show up at your meeting with pitchforks.
Of course you want a say over what happens in your neighborhood. But the consensus favors the status quo, the entrenched interest.
Not everyone loves what we’re doing. Luke, Stephanie, and myself have said, ‘Let’s understand people’s concerns. We’re neighbors.’ We listen; we have a lot of meetings.
What are the institutions you’ve set up?
The Square Roots Collective isour brand for all the activities. It includes Square Roots Community Initiative, a 501(c)4 nonprofit that’s the umbrella group. There’s our for-profit businesses; the profits go to support the nonprofits. We donated more than $1 million last year to nonprofits and projects in the area.
On Birch Street, there’s our offices, and the Creamery [converted from an old condensed-milk plant site], which we started as a beer garden in 2016, it’s now a restaurant, and Artelo, the art hotel.
We are also working on the Francis, an eight-room hotel in the middle of town. And we are opening a really cool cocktail bar, the Star and Lantern [referencing the Underground Railroad and the area’s abolitionist history] in 2027. And we are preparing Opus, a restaurant.
On the nonprofit side, there’s the Kennett Trails Alliance, a 14-mile loop. About half is open, and we have easements for most of the rest, not all. It connects some of the open spaces, the Brandywine Creek, Anson B. Nixon Park, the YMCA.
And there’s Voices Underground, an organization we initiated in partnership with Lincoln University and Longwood Gardens, elevating the stories of the Underground Railroad.
Artelo Hotel Kennett Square, which has works by local artists in each room. This is “Floating Free,” by Philadelphia artist Philip Adams.
Your groups own about 40 of the 2,000 or so houses in the borough. Is there a shortage of affordable rentals, given demand from mushroom farms and other industry?
Yes. What we have is tenant housing, market rate, including some we rent to area charitable and community groups [for their clients].
How did you decide to start Chatham in 1991?
When I was 13, I worked for an appliance repairman, John Schmucker. He was brilliant at fixing washers, dryers, dishwashers. But he was a disastrous business guy. He never collected. I saw building a business is very different from being smart and an expert.
My father was a Mennonite pastor in Christiana, Lancaster County. I went to Lancaster Mennonite School. I went to Wheaton College in Illinois. I was so naive; I had never met a real professional.
I would sign up for any kind of recruiter interview. I eventually went to see someone who worked for Chemical Bank [predecessor of JPMorgan Chase]. I got a job offer.
I joined this new unit selling these emerging derivatives — interest-rate swaps, currency and commodity hedging — to help clients manage the risks.
There were products that were inappropriate for most investors. Municipalities got in trouble buying things that didn’t need, where the banks took out a lot of money.
People needed advice. I loved helping clients, maybe it was a big company, or maybe an oil distributor in Queens who needed to hedge his fuel-pricing risk.
Why did you return to this area from New York?
My wife wanted to move back to our families. In August 1991, I bought a place in Cochranville. We had a satellite dish that brought in Telerate [a stock-tracking service], which was just a year old. That’s what made it possible to do this work anywhere. I started over the garage, me and my dog.
It turned out to be the best time to start a derivatives advisory business. There were a lot of properties available from [recently failed] savings-and-loans at cents on the dollar, and someone figured out a legal structure that allowed real estate investments trusts to go public. We did their hedging. Same with private equity.
I called a few of my old clients, Milton Cooper at Kimco Realty Trust, we helped him go public, he recommended us. We advised [mortgage-bonds pioneer Ethan Penner] on the first mortgage-backed securities. In 1994, I cold-called a young associate at a firm buying failed S&L loans. He hired us to hedge. That was Jon Gray, who worked his way up and is expected to be the next CEO of Blackstone.
We mastered hedge accounting. We had more derivative hedging experts than anyone. The Big Four accounting firms and their clients found we spoke their language.
By 2000, we had built a real business. We moved to Kennett because it was a larger town [and closer to Philadelphia and its airport].
How did you prepare your work to go on after you left, under your successor Matt Henry?
At Chatham, I wanted us to be internally owned, the people who are joining should reap rewards. I did not want any outside investors. [Employees own most of the stock, and elect top officers.]
I have been diagnosed with ALS, which is a pretty devastating diagnosis. I don’t how long I will be able to be actively involved. I still get to do purposeful work with people I love. Isn’t that what we all want? So I’m going to go until I can’t.
CEO Matt Henry of Chatham Financial center, just outside Kennett Square.
Tired Hands Brewing’s Ardmore Brewing Company brewpub has been turned into a private event space, for now, as its owner navigates the future of the beer company.
Tired Hands’ Kennett Square taproom and bottle shop is permanently closed, owner Jean Broillet confirmed to The Inquirer on Feb. 19. Tired Hands’ Beer Park in Newtown Square also will not reopen this summer as the property’s owners are looking to redevelop it, Broillet said.
Tired Hands’ Ardmore Fermentaria and Fishtown restaurant and brewpub St. Oner’s remain open for business. The brewing company’s MT. Airy Biergarten is a seasonal operation scheduled to reopen inthe spring.
Broillet said the decision to shift to private events at the Ardmore Brewing Company location was born out of a number of factors: having two Tired Hands locations in Ardmore was confusing for customers; ongoing construction in Ardmore created a “prohibitive environment” for doing business; and the changing landscape of brewing has prompted Tired Hands to begin reimagining parts of its business model.
The changing face of Ardmore, and of Tired Hands
When Broillet opened the first Tired Hands location, the BrewCafé, in 2012, he said there was little by way of interesting, high-quality food and drink in Ardmore. At the time, he said, Tired Hands’ craft beer and artisan meats and cheeses stood in stark contrast to the Wawas and Irish pubs the area was accustomed to.
Ardmore “went from zero to 60 really quickly in terms” of dining and entertainment options, Broillet said. He added that Tired Hands was a catalyst for that progress.
In 2015, Broillet and business partner and wife Julie Foster opened the Fermentaria at 35 Cricket Terrace, just blocks from Tired Hands’ first location at 16 Ardmore Ave.
The Fermentaria was a major expansion for Tired Hands. It offered food options that extended beyond the BrewCafé‘s sandwich-and-salad-based menu, like steak frites and baby back ribs. It also quadrupled Tired Hands’ production capacity.
At the BrewCafé, Tired Hands’ brewers were able to produce 1,000 barrels of beer annually. At the time of its opening, Broillet anticipated that the Fermentaria would increase production to 4,000 barrels per year.
Tired Hands opened St. Oner’s in Fishtown in 2020.
In the years that followed, Tired Hands opened the seasonal Biergarten in Mount Airy, the Kennett Square taproom, and theBeer Park in Newtown Square.
Broillet said that “lots of valuable lessons, worldly lessons, were learned during that process” and that Tired Hands is doing everything it can to “prevent that from ever happening again.”
Ardmore Brewing Company, located at 16 Ardmore Ave. in Ardmore. Owner Tired Hands Brewing has transitioned the brewery into a private events space.
Changes in Ardmore, closure in Kennett Square
Though opening a second Ardmore outpost helped grow Tired Hands’ footprint on the Main Line, having “two of the same company” also made things “pretty confusing for people,” Broillet said.
In efforts to iron out the confusion, Tired Hands rebranded its BrewCafé last spring, renaming it the Ardmore Brewing Company, upgrading its interior, and adding more food and cocktail options while cutting down its beer list.
“The confusion was still there,” Broillet said.
Broillet alsobrought on a culinary team that had extensive experience with private events. They began to host a handful of events at the brewery — retirement or birthday parties, for instance — which were a success.
At the same time, major construction had created a “prohibitive environment for us to do business here on Ardmore Avenue,” Broillet said. Construction on the mixed-use Piazza project and Ardmore Avenue Community Center are ongoing, both of which are proximate to Ardmore Avenue and the businesses that operate there.
The brewery shifted to exclusively hosting private events in the last few months, a decision Broillet said he “couldn’t be happier” with.
The brewery owner said the Ardmore Avenue location will be open to the public again in the future, but did not specify in what form.
The taproom and bottle shop in Kennett Square will not reopen.
Broillet said he opened a Tired Hands outpost in Kennett Square, in part, to have a presence near his family members who lived there. Though it was a “fun” chapter, Broillet said it no longer made sense to operate in Kennett Square, where Tired Hands already has a strong network of distributors that can get their beers into people’s hands without making them trek to the bottle shop.
What comes next?
Broillet offered assurances that Ardmore Brewing Company will open up to the public again but said specifics aren’t clear yet. Tired Hands also plans on expanding its Mount Airy footprint with a permanent restaurant space.
For brewers across the country, the specter of people drinking less alcohol looms large. Sales of craft beer fell 4% in 2024, and there were more brewery closings than openings in late 2024 and early 2025, the first time in 20 years such circumstances occurred.
Brewerytown’s Crime & Punishment Brewing shuttered last April, with its owners citing a shifting culture around alcohol among the reasons for its closure. Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant, a Philly-area craft brewing pioneer, abruptly shuttered all of its locations in September.
Broilletsaid that though the changing dynamics of the industry remain on his mind, Tired Hands was not “acutely a victim of that downturn.” Sales had been down slightly over the past few years, but Broillet attributes that more to having two locations in Ardmore than to the state of the industry. He’s bullish about Tired Hands’ ability to distinguish itself and sees excitement in the changes.
“Those sentiments have a way of just propelling you forward,” Broillet said.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
A Chester County man pleaded guilty to murder and related crimes earlier this month after he punched a 9-month-old infant and did not seek medical care for the child, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Enrique Lopez-Gomez, 32, of West Grove, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and endangering the welfare of a child on Feb. 11, according to prosecutors.
He remains incarcerated in the Chester County Prison and awaits sentencing.
Announcing the charges, Chester County District Attorney Christopher de Barrena-Sarobe called the crime “unthinkable.”
Prosecutors say Lopez-Gomez was the child’s caregiver at the time of the 2024 incident, when he fell on the infant at a residence in Kennett Square. As the baby began to cry in pain, Lopez-Gomez punched the child in the abdomen, prosecutors said.
He did not seek help or tell anyone about the child’s injuries, according to prosecutors, nor did he offer medical care as the child’s condition worsened that evening.
First responders who were later called to the scene removed the baby from the home, and the child was pronounced dead at Nemours/A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children.
Medical examiners determined that the child had died from blunt force trauma, leading to an intestinal rupture and soft tissue bleeding, prosecutors said.
The baby had also suffered large bruises around the abdomen.
Prosecutors have yet to set a date for Lopez-Gomez’s sentencing. He is being held on $10 million bail.
Michael Bertrando’s first brush with Kennett Square’s council three years ago was to discuss a parking issue at his family’s legacy sandwich spot, Sam’s Sub Shop. He saw his neighbors, listened to them, and started to see how the council worked. Eventually, he became something of a regular.
When the issue of short-term rentals came up last month, Bertrando had a lot of perspective: As an actor — you might haveseen him on HBO’s Task — he has traveled extensively. He has seen the negative effects short-term rentals can have had on communities from New York to Argentina to Brazil. He spoke up.
And then people started to drop by the sandwich shop, which he runs alongside his parents, suggesting that he put his name in for a vacant seat on the council.
The council voted last month to appoint Bertrando, 52, from a crowded field of applicants to fill former council member Julie Hamilton’s seat through December 2027. He was sworn in Monday.
The seat will be on the ballot for a four-year term in the 2027 general election. Hamilton resigned for a job in Texas, the Daily Local reported.
Long ties to Kennett Square
Council member is another job title the local businessman and Task stuntman can add to his resumé.
“I’m volunteering to help the residents of my community; that’s my primary goal,” he said in an interview Tuesday.
Bertrando — an actor, director, and producer — has worked at his family’s 80-year-old sub shop for decades. It drew him back home a few years ago, so he could help his aging parents run the shop.
But in the years between, Bertrando left Kennett Square to pursue acting, appearing in commercials for brands like Mercedes, McDonald’s, Nintendo, and Oscar Mayer; traveling the world as a professional clown; and working the improv comedy circuit in New York and Chicago.
His film career has continued back in Pennsylvania; Bertrando served as Mark Ruffalo’s stand-in and stunt double in Task, the HBO crime drama set in Delco. In his own productions, his hometown has seeped into his work. A short film, Italian Special, is set within Sam’s Sub Shop and Kennett Square.
Since returning to the borough, Bertrando has been a frequent visitor to council meetings, and advised the borough alongside other business leaders on what was going well, and what wasn’t, in Kennett Square.
Priorities on council
His professional career and his family’s long lineage in Kennett Square have shaped his perspectives on the borough, and what he thinks he can add as a council member.
He is motivated by the possible development of a new theater. Infusing more arts into the community would be beneficial, he said.
Having worked on Task, he saw how other municipalities the show filmed in benefited from an influx of revenue: from parking to hiring police for traffic control, to renting out locations in town, to ordering food for lunches and snacks, to coffee runs, to overnight stays in hotels.
“We have all the infrastructure needed for that to happen here in Kennett,” he said.
Both Task and fellow Pennsylvania-based crime drama Mare of Easttown mention Kennett Square, but neither used the borough for filming.
“When you have a theater or something arts-driven in the town, I think that’s a signal,” he said. “I think a theater can work as a beacon for revenue from other sources, like film production.”
Beyond the intersection of his passion for film and the borough, he said the development of the former National Vulcanized Fiber land, a large undeveloped parcel that is being remediated for contamination in soil from the industrial site, has been of concern for residents.
While the project would be years out even if ultimately approved, Bertrando said he would advocate for environmental transparency and affordable development that respects the existing neighborhoods.
He would also like to improve communication between the municipality and its residents — the longtime community members, like Bertrando’s family, and those who are choosing to relocate.
As he began his term on the other side of public comment, he said, he focused in, listening closely to what his neighbors were saying. He feels the burden to pay close attention, since he was appointed to the role, rather than elected.
“I really have to make the effort to listen to their concerns and really try the best ways to help in their concerns,” he said. “Sitting on the other side was exciting. It was important. It’s serious. It’s my town. I really care about it.”
One of Kennett Square’s last remaining sizable undeveloped parcels could get hundreds of townhomes and apartments — once contamination cleanup of a former industrial site passes muster.
But even with the OK from state and federal environmental officials, it would be years — and require more sign-offs at the municipal level — before the developer eyeing a residential complex at the former National Vulcanized Fiber site could break ground.
And the site’s owners face headwinds beyond the governmental approval, as some borough residents worry that the site is not safe for homes.
Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, agencies that have to ultimately green-light the land as safe for people to live on, sought to assuage those concerns Tuesday during a town hall that explained the processes for cleanup and the standards the developer would have to meet for any homes to be built.
It was the latest update regarding a proposed residential complex that would feature 246 townhomes and 48 apartments, located at the 22-acre lot on 400 W. Mulberry St., not far from the historic district of the borough, on a plot of land that has languished for almost 20 years.
It’s one of the largest untouched parcels in the borough, making up at least 10% of Kennett Square, which is one square mile. Developers project the residential complex would increase the population of the 7,000-person borough by 15%.
The site, which housed National Vulcanized Fiber from the late 1890suntil it shut down in 2007, was purchased by its current owner in 2009 and has been the subject of cleanup efforts for more than a decade after the land was found to be contaminated with so-calledforever chemicals.
“It feels like the cart was put before the horse for the public,” one resident, Sarah Hardin, said during Tuesday’s meeting. “I think it’s the fact that we’re all feeling like this was guns a-blazing forward, and we would like to know that all the proper environmental steps are taken.”
The former National Vulcanized Fiber in Kennett Square on Friday, Jan. 23, 2026. Once an industrial site, the property’s current owner is seeking to eventually turn it into a residential development. But first, the property has to be decontaminated that satisfy state and federal requirements.
What’s the history of the site?
For more than 100 years, National Vulcanized Fiber ran operations on the property, creating a slew of products with vulcanized fiber — a durable, flexible, lightweight plastic-like material that was used to make anything from trash cans to computer circuit boards.
Production of those items led to contamination of the site; polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were identified in the 1980s, after contamination spread into Red Clay Creek. That prompted the EPA to become involved, said Amanda Michel, the agency’s PCB coordinator for the region.
The chemicals are probable carcinogens, linked to liver and breast cancer, melanoma, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The chemical is also associated with birth defects, developmental delays, and immune system dysfunction.
Remediation began after the chemicals were found in the 1980s, and NVF folded in 2007. Rockhopper LLC purchased the property two years later and began cleaning the site, eyeing future residential development.
Along with the federal cleanup, in 2010 the owners began a voluntary state cleanup process — which is aimed at redeveloping contaminated, vacant, and unused parcels into productive uses — to target the other chemicals found on the site.
In both cases, the owners have to demonstrate, through sample testing, that contamination has been lowered to a threshold acceptable for human health or that they have the proper barriers in place to prevent exposure.
“Until that happens, there will not be a residential occupant at this property,” said Jonathan Spergel, an environmental lawyer representing Rockhopper.
What is the developer proposing?
Under the proposed development, the property would have 104 stacked and 38 unstacked townhomes, along with 48 one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments. The owners said the project would comprise affordable and market-value units. A proposed rezoning ordinance would require15% of the homes to be affordable.
That component was critical forKennett Square officials, Mayor MattFetick said in an interview last week.
“It’s our best opportunity to have an affordable component,” he said.
Alongside those homes, the property would have roughly 732 parking spaces, and 50 would be added to Mulberry Street.
To offset feared bottlenecks, the property’s proposed plan would have five driveways todistribute traffic flow.
The site’s developers estimate that the property would bring in $382,000 for the borough and more than $830,000 for the school district each year.
Another portion of the site serves as a baseball field at the high school, and no further development is planned there, the property’s owners said in 2024.
The project is helmed by Rockhopper LLC, which is led by two development firms, Delaware Valley Development Corp. and Catalyst City. They brought in Lennar, a home-building company, in 2021. Lennar has done at least two similar projects, remediating industrial lots in Phoenixville and in Bridgeport for residential use, a representative said previously.
What are residents’ concerns?
On Tuesday, residents shared stories of loved ones who lived near the site who have been diagnosed with cancer. They worried that the developer could skew data to move the project forward. They wondered why there had been no urgency to clean it up before.
Officials said the developer has to work with an independent environmental professional and their agencies had been on site throughout the cleanup process.
Corey Barber, who lived near the site for 20 years and moved out of the area after her cancer diagnosis in 2021, worried what construction on the site would bring.
“People are going to believe that they’re going to get cancer from the dust kicking up,” she said.
Charla Watson, who lives right by the property, said there was distrust because the community has not seen the work the developer says is happening.
“It’s just been a wasteland,” she said. “Everything looks the same the day they moved out of there.”
What comes next?
The developer is going through two processes simultaneously. As it cleans up the property to get the necessary state and federal approvals for residential development, it is also working at the municipal level for the land to be rezoned so it can build the residences.
The borough is advertising a change to the ordinance that would rezone the land.
If the ordinance is approved, the developer could formally start developing the land — which would come with at least another year of planning and meetings.
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From national chains to homegrown operations, as Chester County continues to grow, so too do the grocery store offerings.
Here’s a look at some of the stores opening around the county.
Kimberton Whole Foods expanding
This spring, locally owned Kimberton Whole Foods will open its largest location in the county in Eagleview Town Center. Construction began in 2024, roughly 20 years after the location in Kimberton Village opened at a former hardware store.
“We look forward to serving Eagleview and the surrounding communities with healthy, locally sourced grocery options in a customer-focused environment,” Ezra Brett, chief operations officer for Kimberton Whole Foods, said in a statement.
The new 14,000-square-foot facility will continue the store’s offerings of organic produce, grass-fed meats, specialty cheese, grab-and-go meals, and more.
The store will join the growing Eagleview Town Center, which offersrestaurants, salons and spas, professional offices, daycares, and more.
West Chester Cooperative slated for opening
West Chester is slated to get a brick-and-mortar member-owned grocery this year, with West Chester Cooperative at 204 W. Market St.
The cooperative kicked off more than a decade ago, formed by a group of borough residents who wanted sustainable, local alternatives to chain grocery stores.
Over the next 10 years, the group launched outreach efforts, opened a pop-up market, and did curbside pickup and limited in-store shopping hours. In 2022, it reached 500 member-owners.
The grocery will be open to all shoppers, but member-owners will receive select benefits.
Kennett Square is also getting its own cooperative grocery store
West Chester isn’t the only municipality in Chesco getting a different model of grocery store. Also nearly a decade in the works, Kennett Square’s Kennett Community Grocer is expected to open this spring at 625 E. Cypress St.
Renovations began in 2025, and the store will offer locally grown produce; dairy, eggs, and meat from county farms; local baked goods and prepared foods; pantry staples from local producers; and a cafe for community members. It will also hold educational and other events led by healthcare professionals and farmers.
“It felt like doing this was to highlight for everyone that we have this precious land that’s quite beautiful, that is very bountiful with products, not just mushrooms, but meat, dairy, produce, fruit, vegetables,” saidEdie Burkey, president of the nonprofit board leading the grocer. “We felt that bringing people together for the common cause of supporting the land that we’re very, very proud to be part of was a good thing.”
Farmers will get a free cup of coffee at the cafe, which will sell locally roasted coffee, and local teas and honey. The store hopes to partner with the high school’s culinary students for an internship program. Products that don’t sell will be donated to organizations like Philabundance’s Mighty Writers, Children’s Advocacy Centers of Pennsylvania, and others, Burkey said.
“We all eat, and to create a community around eating — things that are grown around here — and protecting the land so that maybe farmers don’t sell their land to developers, you’re just creating a sense of community in and around an activity that is so vital to every part of your day, every day of the year,” Burkey said.
Other national chains coming to the county
Meanwhile, bigger chains are also looking to call the county home. Phoenixville could see two national stores coming in the coming months.
Construction for an Aldi, an international discount supermarket, began over the summer at 297 Schuylkill Road.
Meanwhile, Sprouts Farmers Market, the Arizona-based organic and natural grocery store, is also eyeing a location in Phoenixville. Most of the grocer’s local footprint is within Philadelphia, but a Phoenixville location would broaden the store’s reach further west.
The Phoenixville location is proposed at 808 Valley Forge Road, where the former Royal Bank used to sit. It would operate 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, next to an indoor self-storage facility.
