At the center of Millbourne is a sprawling lot that takes up one-third of the borough, and the only thing that has filled it over the past 25 years is possibilities.

The train station and bustling intersection of vehicle and foot traffic that are right there have been leveraged by several small businesses, but no developer has yet filled the shoes of the Sears store that was once Millbourne’s main attraction and the source of about a fifth of its budget.

“It was the mainstay of the borough as far as taxes were concerned. It was thriving. It was a business that people would go to,” reporter Linda Reilly said in a report on Millbourne by Grapple, a podcast sponsored by National Public Radio that focuses on people living and working in distressed communities.

In the wake of the department store’s 1988 departure to 69th Street in nearby Upper Darby, Millbourne has slowly and painfully recovered. Mayor Tom Kramer noted that his property taxes saw a 122 percent increase in 10 years.

Finances are better today, but leaders of the 1,200-resident community still have few options beyond waiting for economic revival to decide to show up.

“So this is the entrance to nowhere at this point,” Kramer said. “Where it’s just like this vacant third of Millbourne, which is stretching into the distance. The wasteland.”

Click here to read more about Millbourne’s recovery and its possibilities on Grapple.

Click here to read DELCO Today’s coverage of a Grapple report on Chester.