Nearly three years after the project was first introduced, a student housing developer is moving forward with final plans for a new 12-story high-rise in downtown State College.

State College Planning Commission on Wednesday reviewed the final land development plan for Landmark Properties’ The Mark, a 155-feet-tall, mixed-use building to be constructed at the corner of East College Avenue, Sowers Street, and East Calder Way.

Much of the planning commission’s discussion revolved around the commercial space on the first and second floors, which a Landmark representative said will no longer include the return of McDonald’s to the corner of East College and Sowers as previously planned.

Plans for the building include 159 residential units on floors three through 11, ranging from studios to five-bedroom apartments, for a total of 515 beds. The second floor will have an open-air courtyard, club room, fitness facility, and study spaces, and the 12th floor will feature a rooftop deck with a pool and another club room, according to the presentation to the planning commission.

Bicycle parking with 160 spaces will be on the ground floor and three levels of underground vehicle parking, accessible from Calder Way, will have 295 to 305 spots, including eight ADA stalls and four electric vehicle charging stations. Nine spaces will be reserved for customers of the retail space, though Landmark development manager Nick Lev said that could increase depending on the tenant.

Plans call for 6,065 feet of retail space on the ground floor and 8,630 square feet of commercial space on the second, which will likely be divided into four units.

When the project was granted a conditional use permit for a signature development by the borough in 2022, preliminary plans showed McDonald’s as part of the ground floor, on the same corner it had long occupied as a free-standing building.

The downtown McDonald’s closed in November — and was the subject of a vigil — after the building was sold to Landmark for $12 million. (The Armenara Building on Sowers and the Keystone Building on East College were also sold to Landmark around the same time for $5.4 million.)

A walk-up window originally intended for McDonald’s remains in the plans for now, but the fast food franchise doesn’t.

“McDonald’s is no longer going to return,” Lev said. “But I can say the fact that they were in that location and the fact that we have a walk-up window, we are in preliminary conversations with other national fast food and fast casual retailers who are very interested.”

Lev further explained that two fast food or fast casual restaurants have shown interest, as well as “a retailer of college gear and things like that.”

Empty ground floor retail space in new downtown high-rises has been a concern among borough officials and residents for years, as developers took rental housing “bonus” available in the limited Signature Development Overlay areas of downtown that allowed the construction of additional residential floors if they included two floors of commercial.

That incentive led to a spate of 12-story student housing while developers were in no rush to fill the commercial areas, usually building them in “gray shell” condition with just four walls and conduit that could be expensive for tenants to build out.

The bonus area was reduced in 2017 to six blocks east of McAllister Alley and borough council eliminated it entirely in October 2022, after Landmark had submitted its plan, meaning The Mark will likely be the last new student apartment high-rise of its kind downtown for the foreseeable future.

The Mark’s commercial space will be constructed “gray shell,” Lev said, but he added that Landmark is budgeting for leasehold improvements to assist tenants with building out the space.

“The problem with starting to build out a space is different users have different requirements,” Lev said. “What Chick-fil-A would want is different from what the clothing retailer would want; it’s different from what a barber shop would want or need… It is our preference to not build out what is not needed by the end user. Then we would have to just demolish that and build what that person would need.”

If the commercial areas are not occupied at opening, film will coat the windows so the empty space is not visible from the street, he said.

Lev added that Landmark — which also owns The Metropolitan, The Standard, The Legacy, The Retreat, and The Station — is confident in the viability of the commercial space at The Mark and that its in-house retail asset manager and a retail broker are working on outreach with potential tenants.

“We feel good about this location,” Lev said. “There should be plenty of demand, especially for the ground floor.”

For the look of the building, the exterior will utilize StoCast red brick panel, thin brick veneer, corrugated metal, smooth metal panel, and curtain wall with spandrel glass. Landscaped areas are also planned around the exterior.

Landmark plans to begin demolition work in the fall and complete construction by August 2028.