Restaurant reopening; apartments planned
LOWER SALFORD » Online sites list Mainland Inn as “permanently closed.”
That might turn out to not be the case, though, under a plan outlined to the Lower Salford Township Board of Supervisors at its May 4 meeting.
“I’m old enough and I’ve lived in the area long enough to remember when that was really a great restaurant where people went for special occasions,” Bill Bonenberger, who now owns the building, told the board.
“For a number of reasons, it failed twice since 2008,” he said, but said he’s planning to find a new operator to reopen the restaurant along with proposed additional development on the site. The restaurant has currently been closed since 2017.
The plans for the proposed Creekside at Main
land development include three properties — Mainland Inn and a neighboring one, both of which are owned by Bonenberger, and a neighboring one with an office building owned by Richard Kapusta.
“The idea is to retain the existing Mainland Inn, as Bill mentioned, Rich would retain his office use, and then we would propose apartments on the property. We are proposing 45 apartments,” Justin Strahorn, the project manager, said.
The plans include 36 apartments on Bomberger’s property and nine on Kapusta’s property, he said.
Following discussion with the township planning commission, four of the apartments will front on Mainland Road, which the planning commission wanted done to help keep the village feel, Strahorn said. Most of the apartments are further back on the site.
A walking path is planned along the entire road frontage, he said.
“That is also integrated in with the sidewalk system within the development,” Strahorn said. “It’s all sort of connected via trail and path to support not only the apartments, but the restaurant, the office use, and then the rest of the village commercial district.”
Modern stormwater controls are being added as part of the plans, he said. Skippack Creek is behind the buildings.
Requested waivers in the plans include allowing parking space sizes at the restaurant to remain at the current size and allowing parking along the restaurant driveways.
“This condition currently exists,” Strahorn said. “We’re simply improving it with curbing, redoing the access drives, etc.”
Another waiver request was to pay the township a fee in lieu of instead of planting 49 replacement trees that would otherwise be required at the site.
“We’re providing 50 replacement trees on the property. There simply just isn’t enough room for 49 more trees,” Strahorn said. “You can plant the trees where it’s more appropriate within the township.”
The waiver requests, which were agreed to, will be formally voted on at a future meeting when final approval of the plans is voted on, board Chairman Doug Gifford said.
In another matter at the meeting, the board scheduled conditional use hearings for drive-through windows at proposed Arby’s and Popeyes fast food restaurants in the Mainland Pointe shopping center. The hearings will be at the board’s June 1 meeting.