A new effort hopes to show that King of Prussia is more than a mall

To shoppers, they are three intoxicating words:

King of Prussia.

Locally, and even to buying enthusiasts abroad, King of Prussia means the pinnacle of retail therapy.

The reason is as obvious from the air as it is at ground level: nearly 3 million square feet of tantalizing buying opportunity arranged amid marbled floors, sun-splashed atriums, and the splish-splash of decorative fountains under one seemingly endless roof.

With its own iPhone app and easy access from the Schuylkill Expressway, Route 202, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and Route 422, the King of Prussia mall draws 25 million visitors a year.

But chances are a good many of them would not even be able to name the township in which the mall sits, or much of anything else in the form of business, recreation, employment, or entertainment offered in Upper Merion's 16 square miles.

Not only does it have 28,395 residents, it has office and industrial parks, schools, churches, and a convention center that soon will include a casino slots parlor. In all, King of Prussia has 50,000 employees, making it the region's largest suburban employment complex, said Barry Seymour, executive director of the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission.

"But you don't have a perception of that," he said, largely because the uses are spread across the township without much definition.

A recognition of that, and a concern that being content with the status quo could one day doom this Montgomery County suburb that has more of a small-city feel, has triggered a reimagining of King of Prussia - the town, that is.

The effort - including a renewed push to bring the SEPTA trolley line that runs between Upper Darby and Norristown into King of Prussia - is aimed at better defining what King of Prussia is and what it should be, and then deciding how to close the gap between the two.

Should office towers rise where one-story restaurants and warehouses now stand? Are tax policies prohibitive? Does the current zoning make sense? How can such an auto-dependent community be retrofitted to become more pedestrian-accessible?

All of it - and more - will be the initiative of a new entity, the King of Prussia Business Improvement District, or BID. It is a private, nonprofit organization representing - and financed by - the 262 owners of commercial property within its designated 1,900 acres.