Convent grounds become Delco’s newest park

A nearly 46-acre tract long owned by the Philadelphia-based Sisters of St. Francis in Aston Township, Delaware County, will be turned into a park after the municipality recently purchased it for $1.9 million with the help of grants.

Though the parcel is vacant, it was part of a larger tract containing a convent, nursing facilities, and other open space used by the sisters. Records show that the order of Roman Catholic nuns sold the land at North Convent and Red Hills Road to the municipality on Nov. 30.

Natural Lands, a conservation organization that helped facilitate the deal, announced the preservation effort Thursday. The land is close to Neumann University, a private Roman Catholic school.

“It’s been a long but incredibly rewarding process that’s culminated in a huge open space achievement,” Robyn Jeney, land protection project manager for Natural Lands, said in the announcement. “The preservation of this land is especially significant in a community that is almost 100% developed and with a density of nearly 3,000 residents per square mile.”

Natural Lands said the effort to acquire the land began two years ago when officials there reached out to the nuns as part of a plan to preserve large, unprotected properties in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Aston, which chipped in $100,000, was able to buy the land through grants from Delco Green Ways and Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR).

The township plans to open the land to the public as a passive-use park with trails that wind through meadows and woodlands.

“Aston Township is very pleased to have acquired property from the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia along Convent Road,” said William J. DeFeo III, Aston Township manager. “We saw this as a great opportunity to protect the environment and preserve this tract of ground as open space in our township for generations to come.”

The property is 400 feet from West Branch Chester Creek, a waterway stocked by Pennsylvania with trout.

“DCNR is proud to support the preservation of this open space in Southeastern Pennsylvania in an area facing significant development pressures,” DCNR Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn said.

Natural Lands said the project also received financial support from Aston Township; the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Commonwealth Financing Authority; the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia; and the Virginia Cretella Mars Foundation.