Thank you so much.
Mr. DeMarco, good afternoon.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
Sorry.
Long day.
Thank you, Damon.
Please spell it for the court reporter, please.
sure richard demarco last name d-e-m-a-r-c-o you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and
nothing but the truth yes uh can you please identify your client the client is uh an llc
called stash spot llc uh lawrence robinson is my client he's the sole member uh mr holliman
has a few questions to ask you sure good afternoon counsel do you agree to waive the reading of the
refusal and stipulate to its accuracy yes I agree did you email all exhibits
and documents as required five days in advance to this hearing I did
5 days in advance to this hearing. I did.
Thank you. Please proceed and share.
Okay. Thanks members of the board. I'm here on behalf
of Stash Spot LLC.
Here's our exhibit packet and I know that I'll start with the refusal.
I know Hillary had a comment on the refusal and
we trust her as far as what she thinks needs to be changed on it.
um i i think it's it's clear but um i i think i understand what she means she'll she'll certainly
say what she needs to say about that but whatever she we certainly don't want to have any problems
with ellen and i later down the road uh but anyway i'm here for a a use which is um we we're thrilled
to have full support of the neighbors on this um it's a nightclub uh and assembly and entertainment
use. The actual main use is a special exception case, which as the board knows is a lesser
standard. It's not necessarily to prove hardship as far as the use. It's going to be a live
entertainment venue for aspiring musicians. Stash, he goes by Stash, that's his middle name.
He's a musician himself. He has been working on this project for a few years.
He had to go to the land bank to get control of the property.
While there are some dimensional variants involved, there's a height variance.
It's really necessary due to the live music use.
There's going to be a stage on the first floor.
There's going to be a restaurant, a high-end restaurant.
I'll get into more detail in a moment.
There's going to be a smoking area, and Mr. Robinson will, of course, obtain all the proper permits for that.
So the reason why we, you'd probably be surprised that we have full support.
The reason is that the neighborhood does not have places for people to go and enjoy live music.
there is really a dearth of opportunities for up-and-coming bands that aren't in North Philly
that can't afford the big box theaters, and there's very few intimate locations for live music.
Some of you might remember Warm Daddies. That's not what we are, don't get me wrong,
But that's an idea to give you an idea of what this will be, a high end location for live music, for people who are trying to be developed their musical bands.
And that's what this is all about.
So the height variance is necessary because the first floor, and I'll get to the plans in a moment, the first floor needs high ceilings for the lighting and the sound systems.
and we have some refusals for outside decks there is going to be a private club element that's going
to have but when you think about a smoking scenario we're talking about like um like an
ashton's like a cigar cigar nights um and of course he'll have all the proper equipment for
that and um i won't i also want to mention that stash did some research about this this area of
the city was actually, uh, I'm going to segue really quick to a, uh, a blog, this area of the
city. And if you look, this is Ridge Avenue here. I'm indicating with my cursor and these orange
dots were, uh, were clubs, music clubs. Most of them are gone. This is our block right here.
So he's actually located on a, a strip that used to have was called the golden strip. It used to
have live music entertainment locations. Most of them are no longer operating. So he's filling a
need. And believe it or not, the neighbors were thrilled to hear that someone was doing something
like this. So let me show you the plans because I'm sure you're going to see that. Oh, I'll show
you some photos real quick. This is the posting. This is the building. There's going to be additions
to it. It's empty, it's vacant, needs some attention. There's a lot of auto-related
uses on this particular block. There are homes, but they're pretty removed. This is the building
here, and you can see there are some homes down here and back here, but they're pretty far from
location it's mostly vacant lots that it's adjacent to this is his um moniker if you will
the stash spot is what it's going to be called these are some conceptual ideas as to um
how the interior will look the sound stage um they'll also be and this is what he had in
the sound stage um they'll also be and this is what he had in mind for the uh outdoor spaces
they're going to be some nice lighting high end he's not going to have people out there late um
here are some of the menu suggestions going to be like a kind of a soul food cajun style menu
again these are some of the conceptual photos he's going to have some fried oysters
um like i said like an etouffee occasion theme all right here's the plan um
this is the uh first floor here
this is the second floor there's a stage here uh there's an open bar and this is the third
story here there's the outdoor deck at the third story level and there's an open patio at the
second story level this will be more clear on the rendering which i'll show you in a minute
these are the elevations and let me show you the rendering so it gives you a real better idea of
of how high end he's proposing this to be and i'll get to the details of the security and the
parking in a minute so this is the renderings by the architect and here's the open spaces here you
see it on here this is the third floor deck and the second floor deck these are variance items
the cmx2 zoning district requires variances for outdoor decks and as you can see there's
a lot of open space nearby so there's a real buffer from the neighbors let me get to um
this is the executive summary it's in our um packet mr uh robinson uh has a full business
plan for this so he is a businessman and i'll have him speak in a moment he operates a bus
bus company he has access to buses there is a nearby um city owned free lot about three or
blocks away. So there is on-street parking available, but Mr. Robson's going to have
shuttle buses to and from the parking area, the city lot, and he has already, and I prepared a
letter for him, he has interfaced with the parking authority for use of that lot. He's been told that
it's available for use, and he's going to have that for overflow parking as necessary.
Uh, let me show you the, so what we did was when we met with the RCO, we have full, actually almost unanimous support. The vote was 16 to 1 in support. Um, Mr. Harris from the RCO who we worked with, uh, wanted some, um, some commitments made, which we did. Um, they're not part of his letter, but, um, the intent, I wanted you to see it because it'll show why I think you'll, you'll see why we have the support we have.
This will be a 30 and over business.
He does not want the younger crowd, the younger set that can sometimes cause problems.
He wants to be an older crowd.
He's going to enforce a 30-year and over requirement.
As you can see, the provisor letter talks about the parking, overflow parking lot that he has available for use.
um we have a we'll have commercial trash hauling um we're going to allow the rco uh to use space
at reasonable times on non-busy busy nights he's going to make the the some of the spaces available
for the to the neighborhood group for meetings um he's got a veterans group that is um going to
use the space for some informational meetings and such. He's going to have licensed security
to prevent crowds control. And let's see, I think that's the main, here's the RCO letter.
I don't know if Mr. Harris was able to hang on at this late juncture, but I've never seen such a
a glowing uh support letter for a nightclub use um he he really spoke very fondly of the application
because a lot of the neighbors um were happy to hear about it um and you can see uh he mentions the
um the ridge avenue corridor that used to be a um an actual live music destination area and has not
lasted and this is hopefully going to attempt to reinvigorate that um so let me do this uh let me
have stash um raise his hand virtually i do want to pose just a couple quick questions to him so
you can meet him and see um that he's uh excited about it and going to really stick to his
that he's excited about it and going to really stick to his guns and get this thing done and
do it right. So let's go ahead and do that. Stash, can you raise your hand virtually?
And while he's doing that, you can see on your screen the Ridge Avenue Renaissance that the RCO
is hoping that this use can hopefully invigorate and really move that corridor away from
uh auto related uses to a more uh you know entertaining entertainment live music destination
where people can meet each other and i know you've seen some there's not a lot of places for
people to meet uh in the city and this is hopefully one of those things so uh hopefully stash
can be unmuted and we'll have him adopt some of these facts and testimonies what is your client's
dave uh stash robinson um lawrence robinson has been unbuted and allowed to speak okay
yes how you doing my name is lawrence l-o-r-e-n-c-e stash s-t-a-s-h robinson r-o-b-i-n-s-o-n
thank you do you swear to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth
yes please proceed counsel thank you stash did you hear my uh presentation yes i did
All right. Is the facts and circumstances that I laid out in that presentation, are they true and accurate? And do you adopt them as your formal testimony in this matter?
All right. So just very briefly, explain to the board the process very briefly that you went through to get your control of this property.
About three years ago, I purchased 29, I mean, 2319 Ridge Avenue.
That took about, I went to closing on May 6th of 2021.
Then the property that's connected to it, 2317 Ridge Avenue,
I had to purchase from the city of Philadelphia, the land bank.
That took almost another two years.
And then going through L&I and zoning and things like that.
And so here we are now, almost three years later.
And did you work with the councilman's office throughout that land bank process?
Yes, I originally worked with Daryl Clark's office.
And before that, I was actually represented by Jeffrey Young Jr., who's now the city council member in that area.
But once he became the city council member for Daryl Clark, it became a conflict of interest.
And so I had to get new representation, which is you. So, Rich.
Right. So why don't you go ahead and just piggyback on what I was talking about.
Why do you feel this use is needed? And you did some research about this.
Why don't you just briefly explain to the board why you feel there's a there's a there's a real need for this type of use in the community?
correct um well for years and years and years um i've always wanted to open a live music
establishment um being someone that's been on both sides of it the singer but also the business
outside of it i always felt like there was nowhere for um musicians and singers and poets and
comedians to ever to go somewhere and just hone their craft and and have fun with it um like like
Like you said before, the Warm Daddies, the Souths, the place called Time.
Little places are really nice, but a lot of them don't really cater to the musician.
It's kind of like more so for hire.
And I wanted to bring something to the community where I know they would enjoy just meeting some new artists.
some of the artists that are on the radio now all of my friends associates that I've sung with
they all play for these different musicians and you know when there's a show in the city
that the Dell or at the Met they're always looking for somewhere to go somewhere to go so
you know I wanted to have a place where they're done their shows they can go back and come come
to my establishment and and sometimes you'll be there just for a dinner and you know you never
know who's going to come through the door um and that's what I wanted to provide because there's
nothing really like that in the city for musicians and artists and different singers to to come to
and and just kind of lay their hair down and have have fun and and I wanted to bring back dancing
And things for people my age to be able to do because I'm 39, but a lot of things in the city is either too young or honestly too old.
So I wanted to bring a mixture of the my age group to the older age group.
I wanted to bring a mixture of my age group to the older age group.
There's older bands that I've sung with, the UGOs, a lot of friends, the Manhattans, the Affiliant Truders, a lot of these different bands.
I would love to play on different nights, and I think it will bring something good to the neighborhood.
And you're going to have maybe some comedy nights sometime.
So it's late. The board has another whole list to go. So I think what we can do is I believe we've got no opposition here. So I'll go ahead and move my exhibits into evidence. I would just mention to the board, we could probably talk longer about this, but I'm mindful of your schedule.
So then questions or. Yeah. And just just to sum up, Mr. Chair, it's a special exception to use itself.
The dimensional variances are asked for in context with special exception.
And it's really just to bring a really nice product to have those variances will allow it to be to have the high ceilings that is needed and the room to do the uses that he wants.
Thank you. Any questions from the board?
No, Mr. Vice Chairman.
No, Vice Chair.
Questions from our attorney, Hillary Emerson.
I just wanted to note, as Mr. DeMarco mentioned at the beginning of his presentation, we do need to obtain a corrected refusal.
And I will handle that from L&I because the description didn't describe where the additions were or list the specific uses that were being requested.
There's some mention of them in the list of variances, but there needs to be a description of the scope of work.
And Ellen and I said, no, we need to take this one back and have it corrected.
So we'll do that and we'll aim.
We won't put a date on this, but we should be able to vote this either next week or the following week at the latest.
That's great. Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah. OK. Yeah. No, I agree.
The refusal is not the greatest. So, yeah, that could be actually. That's terrific. Thank you very much.
All right. Any questions from the virtual audience?
Vice Chair, we have Habsah Ayeda. They have been unmuted and allowed to speak.
Good afternoon, ma'am. Can you please state your name and spell it for the record?
Good afternoon.
Habsah, please unmute yourself.
vice chair it seems they're having technical difficulties
is any other hands up we have stephen michael kufffeld they have been unmuted and allowed to
speak good afternoon good afternoon um can you state your name and spell it for the record
Stephen, S-T-E-P-H-E-N, C-U-F-F, like Frank, E-L-D as in David.
Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, but nothing but the truth?
Please proceed.
Very briefly, as a member of the working music community, a full-time touring musician and touring manager,
I am in full support of this effort.
this is an establishment that is definitely needed in the community especially in the location that
is being proposed and i just want to be on record to say that this is something that
should definitely be voted to move forward thank you for your time thank you any other hands in
the virtual audience i see all details at this time advice chair planning commission thank you
vice chair and good after or good evening david fechta with the city planning commission vice
chair and board members the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the commercial mixed use
zoning at this location the proposed variances for rear yard and occupied area are existing
conditions on the property and are therefore supportable because of these conditions requiring
parking as a condition to reuse the building would be unreasonable the appellant proposes
assembly and entertainment in an existing commercial building assembly and entertainment
is allowed with a special exception.
The appellant has shown that the proposed assembly and entertainment