So really what it comes down to is this sign here. Here's the existing pylon on the way in. This is the existing sign we're proposing.
i'm sorry proposed sign it will be located here as i'll mention with inside the shopping center
and this i'll call it a leased area or developed area for this project new building with uh new
parking improvement reconfigured parking area and landscaping etc and back here is
the railroad tracks that i mentioned um so with that introduction i'd like to bring up my first
witness which who is miss erica reid erika you can promote her so they will be coming back in
as a panelist shortly. Thank you.
Hello.
Hi, Erica. Could you please state
your name and spell for the stenographer?
Certainly. Erica
Reid, E-R-I-K-A
R-E-E-D.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do. Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you. Hi, Erica. How are you?
Very good. Thank you.
um you've heard my opening would you verify that it's true and accurate i would the only correction
i would make just for completeness is that this building is not being demoed um it's actually
going to be oh sorry the same structure is going to be reused so we aren't we are looking to demo
and build a whole new building great thank you thank you for that other than that everything
else was correct beautiful it's even better so this building c existing is part of a larger
shopping center correct it is and it was last used as a fitness center or sole use that's correct
and when it was vacated was offered for lease it was yes and uh through the the the many i guess
or several potential tenants flagship was chosen correct yes and uh you have any insight as to why
that was why you chose flagship well i i am we are not the owners of the of the facility um but my
understanding from working closely with them is that there was some of the some of the interested
parties wanted to break up the building which would have had to which would have caused major
building renovations obviously they couldn't take the whole they weren't interested in the whole
building as a whole that that was one that was one issue so there would have been you know a lot
of breaking up and then you could have had um you know losses loss of tenants and not being able to
occupy the whole building uh was the main right i was trying to focus on why we look for another
sole use here so we'd have to modify the building that greatly so the location uh as as uh you see
here on this site plan is here it's remote from residential that's located on tool street is that
fair? Fair. And along the rear here is a railroad track, as I mentioned. Correct. And so this
proposed project here is pretty much self-contained within this area. We'll call it a lease or a condo
area, correct? Yes. And do you believe that the use would cause any detrimental impacts on the
shopping center tenants? No. Okay. As to the signage, we presume that the shopping center is
okay with it. And you think this is minimal and appropriate for this type of use? And we'll get
more into this step later with Flagship. Is that fair to say? I definitely agree with that.
with flagship is that fair to say i definitely agree with that um it's important for uses like
this that are very transit oriented and have lots of vehicular movements to have proper clear
direction and signage so that people don't go in the wrong way you know going out the entrances
it's very important to contain right create flow throughout the site and the freestanding sign is
be in place approximately this location so it's not um a sign on the street frontage it's more
or less the building identification and locator within the shopping center is that fair
description correct okay thank you i have no further questions unless the board has any
you have any other witnesses everyone i do i have i have two more mr chairman that's all uh john
Lombardo? Sure.
Mr. Lombardo.
I reckon. Okay, thank you.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
Could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
John Lombardo, L-O-M-B-A-R-D-O.
Right.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Thank you.
Hi, John.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
Thank you.
Could you tell the board your position with the tenant flagship?
I'm in the real estate land development group for Spotless Brands.
Spotless Brands is a company, my responsibility is to manage development projects.
Spotless Brands is a company that has over 200 car washes from the East Coast all the way out to Idaho.
And I'm working to roll out the flagship brand at this particular location.
Okay. And this particular car wash, it's pretty much fully automated. Is that fair?
That is correct.
Okay. And as you would call a state of the art, I guess you would brag to that, correct?
Okay. And so the building, and I'm going to go move down to some of these renderings here.
Let's take the inside first. What occurs on the inside in the building is the wash, correct?
correct and then there's the option for uh interior vacuuming correct there's an outdoor
shot of the vacuum um i believe i have an indoor one as well
and so there are some here's a here's the indoor run is that correct john that's a pretty good
rendering of it? That's a very typical configuration for the interior vacuums, yes.
Okay. And outside there are some here as well, correct? That is correct. These are not
coin-operated? They are not. And so that minimizes any noise impact you would normally see with
coin-operated vacuums because they each have their own compressor? That's correct. And so
So at this location, there's one compressor.
I think it's in this area here that would run all the vacuums.
Is that fair to say?
There would be two.
One there and one on the other side.
Your days and hours of operation?
Where your cursor is.
And what are your days and hours of operation proposed?
We operate seven days a week from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
I'm going to go back to this site plan here and zoom in only because it's relevant here.
So what I want to talk about, John, here is there's three lanes of, I guess, you call them approach lanes.
Fair to describe it.
And are these lanes, the cars here, there's car stacking.
There's 33 stacking spaces.
i believe that number is correct yes okay and um you know based on your experience
of the 200 locations what's the typical maximum load you would expect here
at a peak period uh based on experience of all other car washes
you know we typically see a peak about 14 uh cars and queuing so okay this particular
arrangement has plenty of queuing and the point i'm getting at is that it's almost double the
amount that you would need so therefore you would never expect to experience any stacking of the cars
Therefore, you would never expect to experience any stacking of the cars back onto Harbison Street, correct?
That is correct.
And just what I mentioned, too, the wastewater here, 40% of it is recycled.
Is that fair?
Yeah, we recapture about 40% of the water through the car wash tunnel and recycle it into the operation.
And we'll move on to the signage.
So this is just a typical branding signage you would see.
Yeah, this is our typical program signage for a flagship.
All right. Great. Thank you. Thank you, John.
I have no further questions for.
Next question. Sure. John Anderson.
We'll be back in as a panel shortly.
Hi, good afternoon.
Hi, good afternoon.
Could you please state your name and spell it for the sonographer?
Certainly.
My name is John Anderson, J-O-H-N-A-N-D-E-R-S-O-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, I do.
Please proceed, counsel.
Thanks.
Hi, John.
Where do you work?
I work for Cornerstone Consulting Engineers and Architectural Incorporated.
We are a civil engineering firm that prepared the survey and the plans that are before you.
And you've heard my testimony so far, presentation, you agree it's true and accurate?
Yes, it is. Yes, it was.
You would adopt it as if it were your own?
And I guess you're, as you were mentioning, you prepared these site plans. Is that correct?
Yes. I'm a licensed professional engineer in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Okay. I wanted to focus on the stacking design. I think that's where any detrimental impact would
be concerned of other than the sound attenuation, which I think we've addressed. So the stacking
design. Can you comment on that? Is it self-contained, as I would describe it, and
retained traffic within this condo leased area? Absolutely. As we work throughout Philadelphia,
we're concerned with cars coming out of a car wash into either the actual right-of-way of
Harbison or Tulip, but we're also concerned with interior access drives to make sure that cars do
not stack and come out and block traffic, which would be interior to the shopping center. And as
Mr. Lombardo had testified, we have about 33 car stacking or staging lanes within the existing
pad site or condo area that we're working with, and it's almost double the requirement that they
would see in a peak time. So, it's our opinion that you would not see any cars stacking out onto
the internal access drive, let alone Harbison Avenue. Okay. Therefore, you could interpret
that to mean that this will cause no adverse impacts to traffic traffic safety that's correct
okay thank you that's all i have for mr anderson mr chairman thank you in closing uh i would say
that uh you did mention we have a letter of support from the wisdom and civic association
yeah councilman driscoll uh submitted a letter through the porthole yesterday um as to the use
you know we believe that it's demonstrated the car wash use will cause it create no detrimental
impacts for the special exception. The granting of the special exception is supported by a few
things. The location is far into the shopping center and located parallel to the railroad
tracks and far from remote from the nearest residential uses on Tulip Street. Actually,
near Tulip Street, there's a Wawa with the gasoline dispensing. We also believe this
would cause impacts on the tenant. Obviously, if there were, they would choose this as a
tenant. And the use will cause no or create no greater impacts than would be there for permitted
use. As to the sign, which signs, which are variants, again, basically comes down to one
freestanding sign. I would posit that's a de minimis variance, as the other signs mostly are
directional. The hardship could be created by not having any signs as to the business location and
identification within the shopping center. And the directional signs, of course, will be needed
for directional and traffic maneuverability um no we don't believe that the signage is um
playful impactful or excessive that's all i would say mr chairman thank you thank you questions from
the board questions from our attorney hillary emerson yes i just wanted to get a little clarification
Yes, I just wanted to get a little clarification. So, Mr. Patterson, on the refusal, it specifically says demo and new construction. But if I understand the testimony of your witness, the building's being repurposed instead.
is there anything about any parts of the building that are being taken down where
ellen i would have possibly considered a demolition um just because otherwise the
refusal needs to be changed because the refusal is incorrect um so that's why i know sometimes
certain changes if enough of the building is you know taken down then that's considered a
demolition even if it's not completely taken down so are you able to provide some clarification on
Unless one of my witnesses says otherwise, I don't believe that the footprint is changing.
So I would agree with you.
So I think in that case, I think we would.
And I see Erica Reed has their hand raised.
Is that was that the representative?
Right.
We could we could bring Erica back on.
Back in shortly.
Thank you, Jason.
Hello.
Hi, Erica.
How are you?
Good, good.
I would just add that the majority of the building is staying.
Obviously, interior, there's going to be interior work.
There's going to be, obviously, if you look at the building here, as opposed to one of
the pictures that he showed of the existing building, there is some exterior modifications
and additions made to the building.
But I would say the sound basic structure of the building, the core structure of the building is staying, but there are obviously modifications being made to it.
So I don't know what your definition of demo would be like cutting it all the way to the ground.
There's nothing left. It's been completely bulldozed.
that's not happening here but there are going to be some demolition activity to get the to get it