Luxor continues LERTA talks with borough
Tax break for proposed apartments up for talks with final vote set in April
A proposed apartment building on Broad Street in Lansdale is another step closer to securing a large tax discount.
Council’s committees discussed a request from developer Westrum for five years of tax relief, and the next formal action could come soon.
“There’s a two-phase process there: we’ve got a public hearing we’ve got to do, but we need an ordinance first,” said council President Denton Burnell.
Beginning in fall 2018, Westrum has developed and refined plans for “Lansdale Luxor,” a fivestory building with 205 apartments, east of Broad and Vine Streets and south of the town’s freight station. Those plans received approvals from Lansdale’s planning commission in late November 2019, borough council’s Code Committee in early December, and full council later that month.
The local taxes on the parcel became a topic for discussion last September, when Westrum asked the North Penn School Board for a LERTA, or Local Economic Revitalization Tax Assistance Act incentive, to phase in the increase in property taxes over the next ten years.
North Penn’s board asked the developer to reduce the phase-in period and get approvals from Lansdale’s borough council first, and Westrum showed the details to Lansdale’s administration and finance committee on Feb. 5, followed by a presentation to full council on Feb. 19.Council’s committees discussed next steps during their March 4 meetings, and how the approvals could play out over the next two months. In February Westrum’s team said they would begin drafting an ordinance spelling out the terms and conditions, and Burnell and committee chairman Leon Angelichio asked if that draft was ready yet.
Borough Manager John Ernst said that draft had not been received as of the March 4 committee meetings, but could be ready in time for a council vote to advertise it for public review and feedback.
“We’re looking to just do a prepare-and-advertise this month, so that the ordinance would be here by the business meeting, when you guys are voting to prepare and advertise,” finance director John Ramey said.
During the February presentation, Westrum’s team said the apartment building will cost roughly $35 million, and over $1 million of that cost will go toward relocating a stream that runs through the property, while also addressing underground contamination from prior industrial uses there.
The property in its current undeveloped state currently produces roughly $4,500 in annual tax revenue to the town, and the developed project is estimated to produce roughly $97,000 in tax revenue to the town, while the fiveyear phase-in under the LERTA would narrow the gap between those two numbers by roughly $20,000 per year over the first five years, after an estimated 18-month construction period.