COUNCIL OKS EXPANSION OF BUSINESS PARK
Four new warehouses, street extension, new signal all part of plans
LANSDALE » Two votes on Wednesday night marked major milestones for plans to add several new buildings to one of Lansdale’s largest properties.
Council unanimously approved plans of a series for new warehouse buildings at 1000 N. Cannon Avenue, and a waiver needed to make it happen.
“The proposal overall is to enlarge the existing North Penn Business Park through a series of expansions of the existing buildings on the site, and construction of additional buildings,” said attorney Amee Farrell.
“That will result in a little more than — ultimately, when the full build is completed — a little more than 1.5 million square feet in warehouse and manufacturing space, on what’s an approximately 115-acre industrial parcel,” she said.
Plans for the project have been discussed by council since June and the borough planning commission since January, as a team of consultants working on behalf of developer Stoltz Properties had drafted, vetted, and ultimately secured council approval in July of a code change meant to allow reduced parking requirements on the project. The property at 1000 North Cannon was once the site of the American Olean Tile plant, which was the region’s largest employer producing tiles for millions of homes worldwide for nearly 80 years until being shuttered in the late 1990s, according to MediaNews Group and Lansdale Historical Society archives.
Two formal actions were before council on Wednesday night: a conditional use hearing granting those parking reductions, followed by a preliminary and final land development approval for the plan itself. Farrell, traffic engineer Matt Hammond, and engineer Mike Kaszyski led council through both, showing the latest plans for four new buildings totaling roughly 740,000 square feet to be added alongside the roughly 860,000 square feet of building space there now.
During the conditional use hearing, Farrell outlined how the recently passed code change allows parking reductions to be granted by council through that
process, if the applicant meets criteria spelled out in that new code.
Farrell told council, and Hammond detailed how, out of the roughly 1.54 million square feet of space in the finished project, roughly 1.4 million would be located in Lansdale Borough and the rest on the north end of the property in Hatfield Township.
“This plan depicts 1,544 parking spaces. It’s proposed, in connection with the expansion, that approximately 1,227 of those spaces will be located within the borough limits,” he said.
The plan also calls for 254 truck docking spaces, of which 204 would be in Lansdale, and 133 trailer parking spaces, of which 97 would be in Lansdale. Current borough zoning ordinances require projects to have one parking space per employee or per 400 square feet, which Hammond said “would be just shy of 3,500 or 3,600 parking spaces,” more than double those proposed. Comparing the plan to the borough’s criteria, the two said the site is in an industrial district, at least five acres, contains at least 100,000 square feet of usable area, includes a traffic study with the proposal, and does not include the truck or trailer parking spaces.
When the traffic engineer studied the parking this past July, Hammond said, roughly 858,000 square feet of warehouse
“The proposal overall is to expand the existing North Penn Business Park through a series of expansions of the existing buildings on the site, and construction of additional buildings.” — attorney Amee Farrell
and industrial uses exists on the site, of which about 313,000 square feet were vacant. Parking counts were done between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. “during a typical week day” to determine parking demand, and that figure was compared with national trip generation standards, and with counts at a similar facility in Lower Macungie Township, then took the highest of the three figures and applied a 15 percent surplus.
“What we found, based on the existing facility and the proposed expansion, is that the parking demand inclusive of the 15 percent surplus is approximately 1,172 spaces. Wheres 1,544 are being provided, which represents about a 31 or 32 percent surplus,” he said.
Borough traffic engineer Earl Armitage said his firm completed their review of the conditional use request last month, and “did not have any concerns with the parking evaluation.” Council unanimously approved the conditional use application for the parking reduction, then held a lengthier discussion on the land development plan itself.
During that discussion, borough land planning consultant John Kennedy summarized a summer’s worth of review letters and feedback, telling council that the town’s planning commission has unanimously approved the proposal after it was “discussed at length, for many months,” and that Hatfield Township has rezoned their part of the property.
“A couple of what I’ll call high points that the applicant has agreed to, would be the extension of Ninth Street, also the extension of the Liberty Bell Trail through the property, and the installation of a traffic signal at Eighth and Moyers Road,” Kennedy said.
On the south side of the property, Ninth Street currently dead-ends at Kenilworth Avenue with bollard preventing public access to what is currently a private street surrounding parking lots there. Farrell and Kaszyski, the applicant’s engineer, showed how the plans call for Ninth to be extended roughly two blocks west to Cannon Avenue, lined with trees and a sidewalk on the north side, then connecting west to Moyers.
“Not only are they good enhancements to the borough, and also for the people that would work on this property, and I think for people who pass through the area — these enhancements will help mitigate some of the traffic issues,” Kennedy said.
Councilman Rich DiGregorio asked if the traffic signal at Eighth and Moyers would include any alterations to that intersection. Armitage said the traffic signal installation will include evaluating where the stop bars are located near the intersection, and that the traffic engineers for both borough and applicant will work together to identify proper routes for trucks heading off of the property to local highways.
“The difficulty we have now is that a lot of the tenants are not known. Once a tenant is known and goes in, we’ll know where the trucks are coming to and from,” he said.
“As the developer and uses are known and move in, that’s where we can work with them to try to keep them on the major roads of (Route) 309 and 463, and get them over to the turnpike,” Armitage said.
Borough solicitor Patrick Hitchens added minor changes to the documents up for council approval, noting that original copies refer to a plan set dated July 17, 2020 but an updated version refers to a revised plan dated Sept. 4.
Council then voted unanimously to grant the preliminary and final land development approval, per a motion made by DiGregorio and seconded by councilman Andrew Carroll. Borough council next meets on Oct. 7; for more information visit www. Lansdale.org.