Apartments proposed for downtown landmark
Parking an issue at former senior center site
LANSDALE » Borough officials have gotten their first look at a new use for a prominent Main Street building and have started talks on a new program to make parking easier there.
Developer Daniel DeCastro and attorney Joe Clement revealed their plans for “Rail Line Lofts,” a set of new apartments to be built in a former senior center at 315 W. Main Street.
“Many of us know it as the old PEAK Center building. It’s a very challenging building, to say the least,” Clement said.
“The applicant is proposing to do façade renovations to the front, and to the rear, of the building, and is also proposing to construct four additional apartments,” he said.
The three-story building at 315 W. Main Street was home to senior citizen aid nonprofit PEAK Center until December 2012, then the “Lansdale Music Factory” thrift store and concert venue in 2013-14. The building was sold in 2017 to a DeCastro Enterprises LLC, and the town’s planning commission has discussed plans by DeCastro to convert the upper two floors into apartments.
Clement, DeCastro and architect Tom Baglivo showed those plans to council during their Nov. 18 meeting, accompanied by renderings showing the exterior sides of the building clad in grey stone, with outdoor restaurant seating on the Main Street ground level and decorative lighting and windows above. The first floor “would be a commercial use for the vast majority,” Clement said, with a trash enclosure at the rear, and a common lobby to access the apartments above. Due to the split-level construction of the building, two apartments would be about 1,000 square feet, one about 790 square feet, and one about 460 square feet, Clement said, alongside three that already exist in the building.
“Those three are two one-bedroom and one
efficiency apartment. That is to remain, and those tenants are to remain in place,” Clement said.
The first floor commercial space is allowed under the borough’s downtown business overlay district, according to the attorney, and staff have indicated that no requirement for off-street parking is needed because the total building area is below 20,000 square feet. During those talks, Clement told council, staff had indicated “there is a movement afoot” for the borough to offer parking passes granting access to spaces in the SEPTA parking garage just across the former Madison Parking Lot, and borough land planning consultant John Kennedy gave details.
“The details of it are still yet to be worked out, but
the goal would be to have the parking available, on a permit basis, at a fairly affordable fee, for people just that reside in the downtown core area,” Kennedy said.
“We have had many questions and inquiries about the amount of parking in the central downtown core
area. I think it’s probably been exacerbated by the COVID-19 situation, where we don’t have normal turnover of parking spaces,” he said.
In early talks between borough staff, the parking authority, town police and SEPTA, staff have said the parking authority does contract with SEPTA for permits allowing use of 75 parking spaces within the garage, and are working on raising that number to 100 starting in 2021. No program has yet been finalized for the allocation of those passes, Kennedy said, but staff asked the developer to put a commitment in writing for the PEAK building project.
Council President Denton Burnell added that the
program has yet to be vetted and approved by either council or the parking authority, and Borough Manager John Ernst said staff, police, and the parking authority are all talking concept onl
Councilman Leon Angelichio said he was glad to see a new user for the building, and that his main concern was the impact on the surrounding streets.
“Historically, this area is distressed for parking. This is not a secret, it’s very, very public, and my concern arises here — we have what looks like a great use for the building, no question about it,” he said.
Councilwoman Mary Fuller added that she appreciated that parking “has been thought of, and potentially built into the equation,” before councilman Rich DiGregorio made a motion to approve a conditional use application for the project.
Included in the conditions was a specification that “the applicant shall purchase one parking permit or pass per new residential dwelling unit,” and borough solicitor Patrick Hitchens suggested that language be changed to specify a maximum of nine permits. Clement countered that he didn’t know if the proposed permit program would allow commercial users or only residential, since
the program has yet to be formally approved.
DeCastro added that he was wary of entering the agreement without knowing the cost of the permits, which could impact whether tenants want to buy them.
“I don’t know if I’m spending $300 or $1,200 per spot annually. If we’re at a ridiculous number, that’s some
thing I can’t even pass on or offer a tenant, because they’ll say that’s just absolutely bananas,” DeCastro said.
Hitchens suggested including language that the permits be for “a reasonable cost,” and that DeCastro’s tenants not pay any more than any other residents in the area.