In an effort to keep information about potential businesses from being revealed prematurely, the Lycoming County Water and Sewer Authority (LCWSA) approved a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with the developers of the Lycoming Mall project at their request.

Famvest Partners LLC purchased the Lycoming Mall property and the adjacent Bush House in Muncy Township earlier this year, but have not specified what the properties will be used for moving forward.

The authority met with members of Famvest and mall maintenance staff in August to review the water and sewer needs of the proposed development, according to a report from Olivia Lopatofsky, LCWSA engineer.

“We, at this point, don’t have any specific plans or information from Famvest for their plans at the Lycoming Mall, and that’s OK,” said Christine Weigle, LCWSA executive director.

“They would like to start to have meetings with us and, for us to do so, they do want to keep some things confidential and recognize the need to share some specific information with us,” she said.

The developers asked for the mutual confidentiality and non-disclosure agreement with the authority in order to talk about potential users at the site and what their needs would be in terms of water and sewer.

“That would allow them to discuss not only the water and sewer plans, but to talk about more details about potential users; for us to discuss the capacity that the mall previously had that actually belongs to the property and so we can talk about what that means if they’re going to stay under the existing capacity that the mall had or if they’re going to go over,” Weigle said.

Weigle noted that she didn’t know “for certain,” but she thinks that the developers are “still trying to sort out what is in the world of land development, maybe the highest and best use that they can get.”

“So, I think they want to talk openly to us about potential things, and not anything specifically so because they’re still holding some of that, which they have partners outside of the area they’re working with, they would like to have a non-disclosure agreement with us.”

Solicitor for the authority, Chris Kenyon, had reviewed the agreement, Weigle said.

“The agreement does recognize that we are a public entity and that we may, under certain terms under the right to know requirements, have to disclose certain information. And if that does happen, there’s a clause in there that has us notifying them in advance of that disclosure. So, it does recognize that we’re a public entity and that there may be things that we have to disclose, if asked,” Weigle said.

A meeting to review proposed plans for the development is scheduled for this month, Lopatofsky stated in her report.