862 acres, a new name, and a long queue
The base closed under the 2005 round of BRAC, with Navy and Marine Corps squadrons moving to McGuire Air Force Base, and it officially closed on 15 September 2011. The Horsham Land Redevelopment Authority was established by township resolution on 25 June 2012 and recognized by the Defense Department’s Office of Economic Adjustment that August, with five board members appointed by township council.
Two acreage figures circulate and both are real. The redevelopment authority consistently describes the site it is redeveloping as 862 acres, which is where the “862 Rise at Horsham” branding adopted in 2025 comes from. The Federal Register surplus declaration of 16 September 2010 covered 982 acres. Different documents, different scopes.
Some of the land never left federal hands. The Pennsylvania Air National Guard remains on roughly 200 acres near County Line and Easton Roads, and the Navy transferred about 45 acres to the Air Force between 2009 and 2011, including two drinking water wells.
As of July 2026, nothing has transferred
This is the part that gets lost between a press release and a listing sheet. From the Navy’s Restoration Advisory Board presentation of 16 July 2026: about 850 acres remain Navy-owned, and zero acres of the main base have gone to the redevelopment authority.
An Economic Development Conveyance memorandum of agreement covering the first tranche was executed in August 2025, with a ceremonial signing set for 12 September 2025. It is an agreement to transfer. The Finding of Suitability for Early Transfer is still a draft and has not gone out for its 30-day public comment.
Even the size of that first tranche is unsettled. The Navy says 118 acres in three separate 2026 decks. The redevelopment authority’s own August 2025 release says about 100 acres. Press coverage splits both ways, so anyone quoting one figure as settled is guessing at the other.
What has genuinely happened is planning. Horsham Township adopted an official map in August 2025 and its comprehensive rezoning in November 2025, creating commercial, multiple housing-type, open-space, park and school districts across the site. The township manager put land transfer at eighteen to twenty-four months out. So when somebody says the base is being redeveloped, the accurate reading is that it has been zoned and agreed. Nothing is under construction on it.
The plan, if it is built
Adopted in March 2012 as Option F, across 862 acres:
| Element | Plan figure |
|---|---|
| Residential units | 1,416 |
| Permanent supportive housing | 70 units |
| Commercial space | 1.9 million sq ft |
| School district site | 40 acres, Hatboro-Horsham |
| Aviation museum parcel | 13.1 acres |
| Open space | 205 acres, about 24% |
Build-out is quoted at 20 to 30 years. The 8,000-foot runway is slated for demolition, with the material recycled as road base.
Two cautions travel with that table. Press coverage repeatedly cites “1,300 homes,” which matches no figure in the plan. And whether Catellus Development Corporation, selected in January 2015 to negotiate an exclusive agreement as master developer, still holds that role is unresolved in current coverage.
Whatever eventually gets built lands in Hatboro-Horsham School District, which adopted 36.160 mills for 2026-27, inside a township whose 2.725 municipal mills are the lowest on this side of the county, held down by a large nonresidential tax base. Horsham’s total is 44.837 mills.
The environmental sequence is what controls the calendar
The Navy is responsible for investigating and cleaning the site under CERCLA, under a Federal Facility Agreement with EPA and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. The redevelopment authority states the consequence plainly: ownership of the property cannot occur until after completion of the environmental review.
Cleanups are complete at former landfill Sites 2 and 4, at rifle ranges Sites 6 and 7, and at Sites 8 through 11. Investigations remain open at the Privet Road Compound (Site 1), the Ninth Street Landfill (Site 3), the Fire Training Area (Site 5) and the South Landfill (Site 12).
Early transfer is the mechanism that lets land move before the cleanup finishes, with the CERCLA covenant deferred and restrictions recorded in the deed instead. The completed Shenandoah Woods finding at this same installation used a “perpetual and assignable easement and right of access” that “shall run with the land.” The first tranche was deliberately drawn from the least contaminated ground — parcels outside the former fence line, plus road rights-of-way.
The groundwater question that goes with all of this has its own documents and its own answers, and it is worth reading separately: see PFAS, private wells and your loan.
What is actually built is off the base
Two things, both real and both outside the fence. Hallowell Elementary stands on the former Army Reserve Center parcel, transferred in 2013 and opened in 2017. And the $3 million realignment of the Easton Road and West Moreland Avenue intersection on PA 611, started in June 2021 and reported complete as of January 2025, which required acquiring 986 Easton Road and which was designed to align with future roads planned to cross the base.
Horsham does have new construction under way, and none of it is on the base: AVE Horsham, 274 apartments at 723 Dresher Road, ground broken 6 May 2026 with occupancy targeted for 2028; the Heffernan Tract, 57 homes on Park Road near County Line Road; and County Line Commerce Park at 324,000 square feet.
What a buyer nearby should conclude
- Read the November 2025 zoning and the August 2025 official map for the parcels near the house. Both are adopted, both are public, and they are the only enforceable statements about what can go where.
- Plan on a long horizon. Twenty to thirty years is the number the township uses.
- Expect road work in the meantime. The Blair Mill Road widening runs five lanes from Welsh Road to Easton Road at $8.5 million over two years, and the township has a signal, ramp and water-main program running alongside it.
- Ask about the water source for the specific parcel, because that is a separate question with its own paperwork.
And what a buyer should not conclude
- Do not price in a town center, a hotel, an aviation museum or a school that does not exist. A 40-acre school site in a 2012 plan is a line on a plan.
- Do not carry a press unit count into a decision. The plan says 1,416 plus 70; the newspapers say 1,300.
- Do not assume the first tranche is 118 acres or 100 acres. Two official sources disagree, and neither has been overruled.
- Do not treat recorded land-use restrictions as somebody else’s problem. On parcels that transfer early, the restrictions run with the land, which means the title search finds them and the lender reads them.
What to do next
If the house you like sits within sight of the old fence line, pull the township’s zoning map for that parcel before you write anything. Then call with the address, and one licensed Pennsylvania mortgage lender calls you back — usually the same working day, and by the end of the next working day at the outside. Or type the address into the form and send it along. A lender prices the house that exists today, which is the only one anybody can lend on.