Council OKs new project for Bridge Street
Borough council on Tuesday voted 6-1 to approve a plan to demolish all buildings on an abandoned slaughterhouse site on Bridge Street and replace it with a mixed-use building with 375 apartments, more than 40,000 square feet of commercial space and an extension of Hall Street.
Councilwoman Dana Dugan cast the only no vote.
The development is called Steelworks and was formally submitted last April by Steelworks Acquisition LP. Local Developer Manny DeMutis spoke to council on behalf of the project and said planning for the project actually goes back to 2006 and the first plan was submitted in 2016.
Much of the site, officially located at 537 through 551 Bridge St., has been abandoned for years.
“I came in 1979 and it looked
like that,” DeMutis said.
The project also calls for tearing down some row houses. DeMutis said the residents of those homes are being relocated by the developers.
“It will be a dramatic change to that area,” he said. “We’re recycling the ground. It’s going to create jobs.”
The project will allow widening of that part of Bridge Street, make it more walkable and will put all the utilities underground. Hall Street also will be extended through the site all the way to Paradise Street, which will improve access for the newly constructed
firehouse, Phoenixville Borough Manager E. Jean Krack said.
In addition to the apartments and commercial space, which is divided up among five units, Steelworks also would include a 22,000-square-foot semiopen piazza; 370 parking spaces on the ground floor for the exclusive use of the
residential units; and another 241 parking spaces on the first floor for retail use, and open to the public.
DeMutis said the topography of the site will allow much of the parking to be “hidden beneath the buildings.”
He said although getting financing for the project “will be a heavy lift,” he’s not
worried it will be approved.
“Phoenixville is an easy sell now, it’s not like it was before,” DeMutis said.
This was emphasized later in the meeting by Mayor Peter Urscheler who said the latest census figures show Phoenixville’s population grew by 14.5% in the last 10 years and the borough is the 13th fastestgrowing
municipality in Pennsylvania. He said Phoenixville is now the 36th largest of Pennsylvania’s 2,560 municipalities.
The Steelworks plan, which will add even more to that growth, was recommended
for approval last month by the Phoenixville Planning Commission.
“It will be a nice bookend to Bridge Street and extend the downtown,” said Borough Council President Jonathan Ewald.