Speed Raceway Coming to Village Mall

It’s taken nearly a year of , and an appeal, but investors behind a planned Speed Raceway got the green light from Horsham Township Council Monday night. 

The indoor kart racing facility will fill the 100,000-square-foot space previously occupied by Walmart at the nearly vacant Village Mall shopping center on Blair Mill Road. Travis Thompson, one of two investors involved in the $1 million project, said late Monday that the facility will tentatively open on July 4. 

Following the direction of Horsham Township attorney Mary Eberle, the governing body voted unanimously Monday to approve a settlement agreement with Speed Raceway applicants - including Thompson, president of Ivyland-based Suburban Marble and Granite, and Carl Asplundh of Willow Grove-based Asplundh Tree Experts. 

Eberle said the vote would settle the “outstanding zoning appeal” from Speed Raceway’s push to have the overturned.

As part of the agreement, Eberle said plaza owner, Carlyle Management Corp., would need to upgrade the center’s façade and add security measures, including additional lighting and video cameras and make it so teens could not hang out there. Eberle said Speed Raceway representatives “agreed to those terms.” 

Carlyle Management has recently submitted plans to Horsham Township outlining façade upgrades. which is expected to open this summer.

Horsham Township Manager Bill Walker said Speed Raceway had not yet submitted plans and was unable to do so until the township council agreed to accept a settlement agreement to allow the facility’s construction.

Thompson said previously that plans involve housing 40 electric-powered cars at roughly $9,000 a piece, inside the former big box store. Eight of those would race at a time, traveling about one inch off the ground at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour, he said.