family attached to the council supported action under the district plan recommended rm1 zoning
the proposal would be permitted by right therefore the city planning commission recommends the board
grant the requested variance for multifamily household living use with a count of three
residential units. MI 2026 001 254 1109 North 42nd Street. I vote yes with proviso. Trash
stored inside. Also revised plans one page stamped by ZBA 71526. Michael Johns. My vote
is yes with proviso. Cheryl Gaston. My vote is yes with proviso. Tanetta Graham. My vote
is yes with provisos ryan mcadams my vote is yes with proviso i win my vote is yes with proviso
layla bb my vote is yes with proviso thank you thank you have a great night um
mi 2026 001 549 3900 west gerard avenue
So, so before I swear you in, uh, I don't know if you were here when I talked about
the timelines. Okay. So. We're scheduled right now that our last case is going to be at 7
30 to start. Okay. So what we're doing is we're giving everybody a half hour. Yeah.
Right? Now, you know, there's trees you have put here a lot of information. We don't want you to shortchange your client.
If we get to the point we get much past a half hour, what I'm going to have to do is give you a resumptive here.
We're going to get it done in half an hour.
Absolutely.
A lot of people have said that.
If I don't get it done in half an hour, I'm not going to make it out of here.
Right. Please state your name and spell for this amount for a council.
Yes. Good afternoon, members of the board. Brett Feldman, 1835 Market Street, D-R-E-T-T-F-E-L-D-M-A-N, with my co-counsel, Andrea Salomon.
Right. Why don't you state your name, too?
Andrea Salomon, A-N-D-R-E-A-S-A-L-O-M-O-N.
Do you both swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
We do.
And could you identify your client, their relationship to this property?
Sure. We represent PTTI.
sure uh we represent um ptti um the philadelphia technician training institute ptti and its ceo
and founder mr sherman mcleod okay my left all right we'll swear him in later okay vice chair
has a few questions for you good afternoon have you submitted your documents and exhibits five
days in advance of this hearing we have okay and you have several use refusals as well as owner
refusal so do you wait to read another refusal specifically to the accuracy yes yeah you only
got 30 minutes so say yes all right yes thank you show your screen and proceed with the case okay
great i can i can start yeah give us a general absolutely uh may i please the board again my name
is Brett Feldman, 1835 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Along with my colleague, co-counsel
Andrea Salman, we are really proud today to be representing the Philadelphia Technician
Training Institute, PTTI, that is the zoning applicant. They're also the owner, equitable,
owner of nine properties that are at issue today that are on the 3900 block of Girard
Avenue in Cambridge Street. PTTI seeks use and dimensional variance relief to permit
the relocation of these nine lots to one lot for the construction and operation of a new
four-story post high school vocational technical training school that will also include
include on-site commissary and cafeteria for students perhaps the community as well as
accessory signs in an accessory surface parking lot PTTI has worked tirelessly to acquire these
nine properties six of them are owned by PTTI the other three we have went through closely with the
land bank and we've acquired three of those properties through that we we have almost acquired
now the three properties from the land bank we um were approved by the land bank board city council
and uh waiting on a closing subject to uh zoning relief um and again this is for the construction
of this of this school um you know for the record based on the unique characteristics of the property
and the substantial public benefits associated with the proposed development the requested
relief satisfies standards for both use and dimensional variances under the Philadelphia
zoning code. Turning to the exhibits, we've passed up exhibits 1 through 17, which I'd
asked be incorporated into the record. We're going to go through a lot of those, but just
briefly, we have a lot of information about PTTI, what services, what skills it provides,
what courses of education. We have property photos. We have really strong letters of support
from District Councilperson, Jimmy Gauthier, both at the land bank. So we had to go through
the whole land bank approval process. And now for this zoning approval process, we have a letter from Centennial Parkside, which was, I think, the RCO in the last case, a unanimous letter of support, very strong support language. And then we have letters of support from the state rep, the state senator, because we're in the process of obtaining state money for the construction of this many million dollar project.
and then the other standard other documents, refusals, zoning map, and I'll just get right to
those. With me today, Sherman McLeod, the founder and CEO of PTTI, and Robert Lynn, who is back there,
who is our project architect, and he was before the board, I think, about two and a half months
ago, but we'll have him come up shortly. With that being said, I would ask that Sherman be sworn in
so that he can briefly introduce himself, talk a little bit about PTTI, and why the need for this
second campus building. They already have a campus in 1900 West Gerard at the former Berean Institute
and this is this is the hopefully their new West Philadelphia second campus. Please state your
name and spell for this. Yes sir my name is Sherman McLeod and my first name is S-H-E-R-M-A-N
last name is M-C-L-E-O-D. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth the whole truth nothing but the
truth? Yes sir. Thank you please proceed. Absolutely Sherman I already introduced you as
founder and CEO of PTTI but I just wanted you to we'll talk about that but can you just first
discuss like your background where you're from where you got your education your work in the
private sector just so um the board can get a sense of you know who you are and how you came
to this moment sure I'm from North Philadelphia 24th and Lehigh and uh I'm sorry sir this is the
we have it pull the mic to you thank you right there yeah I'm Sherman McLeod from uh 24th and
Lehigh, born and raised there and grew up. My father was, he worked for the city too, by the
way. He was a sanitation worker. And long story short, got myself in a lot of trouble. My grandmother
got me out and I wind up graduating from Drexel University in 1982. So I've been around a little
bit. And from there, I went on to a fortune 10 companies, being able to develop systems and
processes and ultra high-speed equipment to be able to reduce operations down to the point where
to be able to reduce operations down to the point where it was like 70, 80% reduction in workforce.
But I know that the technicians were always the ones that were left to be able to service the process.
So I saw a great opportunity here in the city of Philadelphia to be able to do that.
And since that time, we've graduated over thousands of people that are really getting into jobs that are $35, $45 an hour in six months.
So that was my job to reverse engineer everything.
They didn't want to leave those companies.
I'll come back to it.
So as I mentioned, you opened PTTI at the former Berean Institute in 1901 West Girard?
That's correct.
And can you tell the board what PTTI is and what career training?
If you look on the slide here, we've got – this is your current campus in 1901 West Girard.
Can you just briefly describe that?
We just expanded the Berean Institute by 15,000 square feet.
That was the first thing that's ever happened on that campus since it was built.
and we're just the the clients that we serve as a new city there we're just bursting at the seams
so we anticipated that that would happen we're pretty much the only one standing in the city
of philadelphia from a non-profit private organization public private organization
it was a non-profit that is doing this in the city and so it's it's really important to be
able to expand the facility. And we look at being in the neighborhood because people don't have
transportation to go outside the city. And it's a friendly place where they can learn and grow and
then get into really large companies. And Sherman, again, these are the courses of study
post-high school that you offer. The largest welding facility on the entire East Coast right
here at 1901. And we have other piping systems, advanced manufacturing, which is heavy in my
background. And we have a program called Central Processing, where we teach people how to sterilize
products for the hospitals and clinics and other type of programs. HVAC is coming on stream in the
next few months, an electrician program as well. Great. And you have most of your students in
from philadelphia yes all of them 100 okay and how many students in a year approximately approximately
now 1500 students a year so we right now have over a thousand students in the school right now
great and um let me just go to the next slide just just wanted to show some of the the different
career opportunities coming out of ptti you can just like go through that quickly
Basically, this is inside of the 1901 West Girard campus?
Yes, it is.
Correct, these pictures?
Well, you see the welders on the top left.
Great.
And we developed some of our own advanced technologies to teach them in VR, as well as hands-on training.
So when they go out, we have over 60 people out there in the shipyard right now, making over $35 an hour.
So speaking of the shipyard, I just wanted to, many of us have heard, you know, all the exciting opportunities down at the shipyard and the Bellwether District, so some of those, we really hope, expanding employment opportunities.
Are PTI students there? Are they working? Are they being recruited? Are they part of those efforts that we hear about, including CNBC today?
Yes, they are. I mean, we have students deployed all over. That young lady right there, she works in construction, and she's doing great work out there.
We have people in the center, the bottom, working for SEPTA, all kind of the railways, everywhere.
We're kind of omnipotent at this point.
Great.
And while we're here today, and this is, I know you get emotional kind of when you see this picture, but this is the second, this is the 39th in Girard.
This is what we're here for today.
That's right.
Just briefly, why are we here as far as really the need for additional space?
Because we already run out of space.
And we want to make sure we keep everybody safe and to be the demand is so strong for people in the inner city is our client that they're coming to us hand over fist.
And now we have students to we don't even have to advertise for students, students who are graduating and bringing other students to us, alumni.
Great. Great. Sure. I don't have any other questions. I don't know if the board does, but I just wanted to give a base for.
We can if we have to. Great. Great. You finish your presentation. Great. Thanks.
So turning to exhibits, too. So here is getting to the project itself. Here's the assemblage. This is at West Girard. This is 39th, Cambridge and Union Street. Nine properties. The ones in pink salmon are the land bank properties. The other six are the properties that PTTI has already acquired. Again, putting these together, nine properties into one.
Here's our site. It's the kind of upside down L with the blue cursor right there on Girard Avenue. Tremendous mass transit, SEPTA right there.
On Gerrard Avenue, tremendous mass transit, SEPTA right there.
We're really part of this kind of educational district.
If you look across the street, there's the School of the Future.
We've got the zoo to the right, all the parking here.
So their first campus is on Gerrard, so it's very close to go back and forth between the two campuses.
So in so many ways, this was really an ideal location for us.
Just moving on to, again, here's a little more context.
The School of the Future across the street, our site, zoo, other parking facilities,
76 um next slide and then here's that kind of at a ground level um these lots are currently vacant
i think almost all these lots have been vacant since 2007 um if you go back on google street view
um so it's it's it's been a long time coming uh and even in the city plan which i think
alan referred to before for project near here this is one of the um sites this this this area right
here for redevelopment because of the long-standing vacancy and non-use next next slide
and sherman's real proud of this uh when pgti took over uh acquired many of these properties
they went out there with their students and with the 12 tons of refuse taken off off these
yeah it was used this was it had been a dumping ground this had been construction equipment
people were left there and it's just immaculate right now we actually had our community meeting
on the site in a tent to kind of celebrate what's happened there. Next slide.
I'll go through these. These are our letters of support. This is from the district.
We have every letter of support. Don't do that. We have every letter of support.
I'll get right through it here. Land Bank, at the Land Bank, the council person,
Sentinel Parkside, unanimous. We have an MOU. And if you look at the language, it's just about
as this is dynamical continuing on state senators, state rep, other interested parties, exhibit
four. This is our refusal. We have refusals for, we have a split zone situation here.
That's really part of the challenge here. We have two different zoning districts. We
have an RSA five and a commercial. So the way city planning review this is we get the
most restrictive of the residential, we get the most restrictive of the commercial, which
limits on what you can what you can do here we have a height refusal which as you'll as you'll
hear um because of the school because of the high floor to ceiling height 16 feet because this type
of school is not a traditional classroom this is basically a training factory um that you know to
to have these skills to have you know learn how to you know yeah wait you know two of our members
training centers, right? One, the carpenters union and the steam fitters. So I think we understand
the little bit of what you're talking about. Let's move on. We've got it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Next. We've got and refusals for signage here. We have letters of approval from the Art
Commission in Tamron Park. This is the district CMX1, RSA5. This is the split zoning, which
really kind of creates part of the hardship here. Exhibit tab six. So with that, let me
Let me now introduce our project architect, trying to make sure I'm on time here.
I'd like to now ask that our architect, Robert Lynn, be sworn in.
Sure. Let's get him, Mike, in front of him.
Hi, sir. Speaking of Mike, please, could you please state your name as spelled for the stenographer?
Robert Lynn, L-I-N-N.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth? Counsel?
Yes. Bob, thanks for being here. What is your current employment?
I'm the principal of Lynn Architects. I think I bored you with my credentials last time. I'll do it quickly.
You didn't borrow us, but you went through them.
I went through them.
44-year-old company I founded.
We're architects, civil engineers, code officials, and construction managers in Delaware County Media.
I'm registered in Pennsylvania and about 22 other states.
And I appreciate your service.
I'm 31 years on the Planning Commission in another province township in Delaware County.
I know what it's like to serve.
It's not appreciated often, but it's necessary.
It's very important.
And I'm also the zoning officer in three municipalities in Delaware County.
That's great.
and I've done four comprehensive projects.
Yeah, you have your CV at Exhibit 15,
you've worked in the city,
you were previously,
you've appeared in front of the Philadelphia Zoning Board
a couple of months ago, correct?
And multiple occasions before that, yes.
And at that time you were qualified as an expert
and I'd like to ask that Mr. Lin also be qualified
as an expert in architecture, zoning, land development.