FINALLY: Highridge has travel plaza after quarter-century of talk
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL - The Onvo Travel Plaza along Highridge Park Road in Cass Township, seen on Oct. 17, 2024.
HIGHRIDGE – It’s been at least a quarter-century in the making, and it’s finally happened. The long-awaited travel plaza at the Highridge Industrial Park has opened.
Scranton-based Onvo began construction of the plaza earlier this year on a plot of land set aside for such a complex when the Highridge Park Road interchange was built more than two decades ago.
It had a soft-opening this month, with most items and amenities available.
The plaza is also Onvo’s first foray into made-to-order food, popularized by places like Sheetz and Wawa, though such offerings were not available Thursday. Though, there is a Burger King included and open with the plaza.
A more formal grand opening is scheduled for next week.
The long-awaited plaza is a much needed addition to the Interstate 81 corridor in Schuylkill County. It is a few hundred yards away from the Highridge Park Road ramp where trucks often park in defiance of abundant No Parking signs along the shoulder.
A 1997 newspaper article about the closure of rest stops in Pine Grove and Mahanoy City noted the travel plaza would “probably open in the first year or two of the next century.”
Because of the travel plaza plans, the article said, PennDOT nixed plans to fully develop its Pine Grove rest area which, with the conversion of Mahanoy City’s into a weigh station, would have been the only rest stop between Grantville and Dorrance, 66 miles.
Next door to the travel plaza, construction is underway on a Townplace by Marriott hotel, expected to have 111 rooms, according to plans submitted to Cass Township.
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