They may run it or there may be a flag, so we're not really sure right now.
All right.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
So the times are not locked in until you actually sign someone up as the operator, am I right?
Correct.
But general operation throughout the country is 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Fair enough.
Yeah, we didn't want to have it like it's not what you would think of open garages where you can just drive in at any time, any day, any night.
It's in an enclosed building, obviously.
Questions from our attorney, Hillary Emerson?
um uh just to to clarify i noticed the refusal that you you annotated to show us the changes
that one was dated 1023 but the other refusal was dated 1028 was there like a second refusal
issued for some reason i don't think so but we look the same to me but it looked like there
were two different ones so i would just i i i annotated that yeah no no that's fine no that's
fine. No, I just noticed that that one was dated 1020. Yeah, I don't know. Regular one was or the
other one was the 28. I don't recall I would go with a later date. There might have been a typo
in it or something. Okay. All right. Yes, I will just note that to the board that in in voting on
this case that it's per refusal dated 102824. Any questions from the audience?
questions from the virtual audience yes mr chair i have a hand up from kate friend i have allowed
her to speak hi this is kate friend hello miss friend can you please state shanae what you
state can you spell it for the court stenographer k-a-t-e f-r-i-e-n-d you swear to tell the truth
the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Please proceed. I'm the president of
Fox Chase Civic Association and I just wanted to verify for the record that BG Capital's
intention is to build this building that they are presenting. Yes. Thank you. You're currently on it?
You're going to build it.
Regardless of who operates it?
Correct.
Thank you.
No problem.
Any other questions out there?
I'll break your audience.
i see no further hands mr chair planning commission
I see no further hands, Mr. Chair.
Planning Commission.
thank you chair michael gall with the philadelphia city planning commission
the comprehensive plan recommends no change to the i1 industrial zoning at this location
the appellant has demonstrated that the proposed changes in most dimensions would not have a
detrimental impact on the area beyond what is expected and the parking requirement in the base
zoning is far more than is necessary for this proposed use therefore the city planning commission
recommends the board grant the requested variances for front yard depth side yard width rear yard
depth and required parking thank you mi-2024-006-922-7801 oxford avenue my vote is yes
per amended refuser dated 10 28 2004. and also one page of revised plans stamped by zba on february
26-2025.
And also one page of
Michael Johnson, my vote is yes
with Provisors.
Cheryl Gaston, my vote is yes
with Provisors.
Tanetta Graham, my vote is yes with Provisors.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Patterson.
You're welcome.
Good evening.
MI-2024-006
947-1604
chestnut street brett feldman council attorney
good evening good evening mr feldman please state your name and spell it for the court
sonographer yes brett feldman 18 b-r-e-t-t feldman f-e-l-d-m-a-n swear to all truth the
whole truth and nothing but the truth i do uh you identify your client sure um i represent
That's McDonald's Corporation with Alexander Ortiz, who is McDonald's area construction manager.
Okay, thank you.
Board member Mrs. Grant has additional questions for you.
Good evening.
Have you emailed all the required documents and exhibits needed to proceed with this case five days prior to this hearing?
I have.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and do you stipulate to its accuracy?
Okay, thank you.
you can proceed great great so again brett feldman 1835 market street i represent mcdonald's
in this application this is an application for a new mcdonald's restaurant at 1604 chestnut street
this would be a replacement for the former mcdonald's that was on the 1700 block of walnut
street that was lost in a fire in 2020 and alex and his team at mcdonald's have been working
for the past four or five years to bring McDonald's back into Center City, and that's what this
application is all about. I'm joined by my colleague Andrea Salmon, as well as Thomas
Kribel, who is our project engineer from Bowler Engineering. We've passed up exhibits one through
19, which had asked to be incorporated into the record. So at this late hour, I will try to get
right to it here. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
We've worked closely with the Community Group Center City Residents Association.
You see at Exhibit Tab 2, Exhibit Tab 1, a letter of non-opposition from CCRA.
In there are a number of provisos concerning location of our trash storage, which is the
inside of the restaurant.
Trash will be accessed in the rear from Stock Exchange Place,
and it also provides the hours for the trash storage.
There's also conditions in that letter regarding that all deliveries will also be made in that rear alley
no earlier than 7 a.m. on weekdays or 8 a.m. on weekends.
And also, we were very careful to talk about we have a new pretty high-tech scrubbing
for any eventing that comes from the restaurant.
Those are all in those, and that provides a letter,
and we will agree to that if the board agrees to support this.
We actually also work closely with the Art Commission
on the signage package that you'll see today.
Wanted to make sure we vetted this as much as possible with all the different city agencies before we came here.
Wanted to make sure we vetted this as much as possible
with all the different city agencies before we came here.
So the signage you'll see has been approved already by the Philadelphia Art Commission.
And the letters of approval from our commission are at Exhibit Tab 2.
Exhibit Tab 3, this is a special exception case.
It's not a variance case.
And we believe, as the testimony will establish, that this restaurant, any impacts that come from this restaurant would not be any more, would not be substantially more than you would expect from a takeout restaurant.
This doesn't have a drive-thru.
This doesn't have parking.
It's an in-line store.
We were here four or five months ago, Alex and I, on a location on North Broad Street.
We talked a lot about the drive-thru and parking lot.
I think at some point you shut me off and said, we're done with this, but this is a different,
this is an in-line store. Just real quick, I think we all know there was the location on the 1700
block of Walnut Street that was lost. Let's turn that around here. And as I said, we've been
working closely. This is some of the articles that were in the paper about returning to Center
city. This was an article that was in the paper about a month or two ago about McDonald's returning
to 1604 Chestnut Street. And here is that article. And so I'll get right to it.
That's the location on the 1600 block of Chestnut Street. It was
Portobello men's store. I think it was a Payless shoe store before there is a really cute,
quaint little building um that is in need of a lot of work um it it all new systems uh new roof
mcdonald's will be uh going above and beyond as far as investing in the infrastructure of that
building to make sure that it uh remains um and and it really contributes historically uh to center
city um just real quick here's what it looks like from the outside i think we're probably familiar
with it. As you go down, there's a bus stop right outside. That's the inside. Here's our posting
that we did on the property in the front. That's in the rear of the property.
And the property goes all the way from Chestnut Street back to Stock Exchange.
And here's what it would look like. Again, it's a really mild sign package that has already been
vetted and approved by the art commission. I have some examples of actually what those signs
will look when they're actually put up at the 40th and Walnut Street location. But there's really
no changes to the exterior of the building other than the signage and some TLC on the front to
make sure that that maintains stability. This is the floor plan of the restaurant. And I'm just
going to ask um alex uh ortiz um who is if you give your title you state your name as fellow
for the court with a semiographer yes alexander ortiz o-r-t-i-z you spread the title truth the
whole truth and nothing but the truth i do please proceed and i know you have a big title but you
are responsible for the construction up and down the east coast well area construction manager i'm
responsible for mid-atlantic construction so mid-atlantic all throughout the region um but
you all you grew up in philadelphia i'm from philly uh yeah so i'm excited to be partnering
with the city on bringing mcdonald's back in um we lost our location a few years ago we've gotten
complaints from a lot of our customers hey there's no options for sort of you know reasonable price
breakfast or a good coffee that's cheap you know so we've gotten that feedback from our customers
and we're hoping we can partner with the city and bring this back and we're already in front of the
board on another location on broad street right so just briefly um what's exciting about this is
it's a new prototype um i think there's just finished at 40th and walnut but i don't know
if you just want to walk the board through just briefly and there's internal trash storage with
as per the you got it you got it so just alex if you really could just quickly just talk about
some of the high points of the floor plan here sure thing this is what we call an in-line um
restaurant and the goal in inline basically means it's in the city it's an urban location
we don't have a drive-through obviously we don't have parking most of the building is actually the
kitchen the blue section that you see there's all kitchen you see kitchen equipment and then you see
a manager's office and you'll see some cold storage and a freezer and then behind that is
kind of is our trash handling area so that whole section in blue is really all devoted to making
with the sandwiches and burgers and the um fries for our customers the green uh area highlighted
there is the transaction counter it's our front counter it's they call it the service area that's
where our our crew members attend to the folks who come to order and then that kind of uh salmon
colored or you know rng color is the the dining room um the exciting thing about this one is
Dining room. The exciting thing about this one is it is the latest and greatest in terms of
it is the latest thing
technology. We have touchscreen ordering. We have connection with Uber Eats and also ordering
through the app. So you'll see a lot less cash handling in transactions. People are ordering
and paying well in advance of coming to the location. They walk in, show a number on their
phone, and they pick up their food. So it's a lot quicker transaction, a lot less cash handling,
and it's the latest and greatest in terms of McDonald's technology.
okay and i can just point out the internal trash storage yeah yeah so that you put in the back
there you've got your uh trash storage area is kind of that l up upside down l-shaped blue you
know right above the uh stairwell to the basement there right here yeah and then you'll have
additionally there's some storage in the basement for dry storage and for dry items as well um but
typically the way trash will be handled is it's it's broken down and sorted immediately as it
comes in. So anything that is any cardboard or anything like that that comes in is broken down
and sorted for recycling. Any trash is packed up into larger bags and then taken out into a covered
trash container. And with McDonald's, we don't wait for trash day. We actually have a scheduled
multiple week pickup of trash to just avoid the buildup of trash. And all trash will be inside
the restaurant and the um it will go out the back onto stock exchange place and into um trucks to
take it correct the trash will be inside for sort of sorting and then go outside into a a closed a
self-closing trash bin and then from there the trash trucks will come by and pick them up okay
great and you heard the um the center city residents as far as the conditions they put on
what time yes and we will comply with the time for trash pickup and we will comply with the time
for food deliveries as well great i'm just going to just flip through here um this is the sign
package it's been approved by the art commission can you just uh describe what what uh you see here
this is um our newest philadelphia project that was just completed on the university of pennsylvania
campus uh 40th and 40th and walnut yes yeah yeah and uh it's just a really beautiful building
corner um we've got the latest and greatest and basically what we're proposing for this location
would match yeah this is this is what yeah you know sign package even interior decor package
that's the same sign package correct basically yeah we wouldn't have the metal panels here we
would just have the logo and the word mark yeah um but yeah and then just inside how it operates
yeah and inside you can see it's not kind of the mcdonald's that we grew up with you know the
plastic seats and everything some people miss it but this is more of um you know kind of an
upscale experience for center city mcdonald's came a long way what's that i said mcdonald's
came a long way yeah yeah well we had to customers wanted something different so we had to you know
meet the needs of the customers and that's the touch screen there that we're talking about where
a lot of the ordering takes place right there yeah and literally half of our um transactions
are either credit card or on um via app application yep exactly okay i'll just look
to this real quick just the inside yep that's at night at that location which is really brought a
lot of vitality to that corner i understand it great and now you also heard my testimony prior
to your testimony correct i did uh and you was it uh accurate and truthful yes and you adopted
your own i do is there anything further you'd like to add at this point um no okay council
can you go back to the drones please yeah sure uh so there's no there's not going to be any
restroom in the back area uh for staff that's that's correct we what we have is um the men's
and women's restroom out in the uh main lobby area yeah all right so is there going to be a
separate station for uh rinsing hands and whatnot absolutely yeah so we um we what you see in the
back we have a uh standard three compartment sink with wash rinse sanitized okay and then we also
have hand sinks built into that main area there's other hand sinks outside right away correct yeah