Planning Commission recommends the board deny the use variants for visitor accommodation.
Thank you. MI-2022-007-294-1833 South 18th Street. I vote yes for a temporary variance that expires 7-8-26.
James Snell, my vote is yes with proviso.
Ishmael Shahid, my vote is yes with proviso.
Thank you, counsel.
Thank you, counsel.
sold. Thank you, Gordon. All right, we're going to number four, MI 2023-000-500-726-28 Market
Street. Jared Klein is the attorney.
Jared Klein is the attorney.
Letter of non-opposition from Washington Square West Civic Association with Proviso and letter of non-opposition with Proviso per RCO from Council Member Squillin.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the board.
Good morning, Council. Could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court report?
word? Certainly. It's Jared, J-A-R-E-D, last name Klein, K-L-E-I-N. Right. Do you swear or affirm
the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Could you identify your client
in relationship to the property? Certainly. My client is Citizens Bank, and they are the tenant
at this address. Okay. Our vice chair has a few questions. Good afternoon, counsel. Do you agree
to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Yes, I do.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that are needed to proceed with
this case five days in advance of this hearing?
Thank you.
Please proceed and share your screen.
Thank you.
So we are here for 726 to 28 Market Street, which is an existing building that Citizens Bank is renting some ground floor retail bank space from.
As you'll see as I get into the exhibits in a moment, there is an existing mural for Five Below that is on one portion of this property.
So this application is seeking to do a mural for Citizens Bank on the other portion of the wall that is available.
This is something that the landlord enjoys having on his building and the least specifically contemplated Citizens Bank ability to do this as sort of a permanent installation on the side of the building.
The refusal that we got is for the size of the sign, because it's a sign that is on the wall.
It's not a projecting sign, and it is not considered an outdoor advertising sign because it is flush against the building.
It's being treated as a mural, and the size of this mural exceeds the zoning code requirements in these three categories.
The top edge of the sign, the general size of the sign, and where it is located.
The concept that Citizens is thinking of can be seen here.
This is the Poe's mural.
It is largely an artistic rendering incorporating Citizens and Seams of Philadelphia.
The actual Citizens Bank identification is limited to their logo here in the upper corner.
And you can see very on the back of this gentleman's shirt, there's the Citizens logo.
But by and large, it is designed to mirror the Five Below mural, which is existing, which you can see here.
It's more of a general piece of artwork with the Five Below logo off in one of one of the corners.
So what we're proposing is designed to sit well with this mural and sort of mimic what it's doing at that site.
This is an artist's rendering of how it would look affixed to the wall of the building.
It is a little bit smaller than the existing Five Below mural because we don't have as much building wall here as there is on the other side there.
and this would be a view from the other direction
if you were walking along Market Street here.
We think the signs are very, very attractive.
They blend well with each other
and we'll make a nice addition to the neighborhood.
Just for context, the site is zone CMX3
and the aerial view is here
to give the board some additional context
on exactly where this is going to be located.
There are some pictures of posting that I'm going to scroll through, but the sign was placed within the requisite amount of time in the leading window.
And just a picture of the existing condition absent the mural.
This is the same photo you saw before, but this is just what the existing condition looks like without the artist rendering superimposed.
this is a larger scale version of the actual mural so the board can can see a little bit
more clearly what is being proposed with this version now that we can blow it blow it up a
little bit you can see that there is reference made to the rocky statue liberty place love park
and other philadelphia attractions so it's it's really designed to not be a piece of corporate
Philadelphia Traction. So it's really designed to not be a piece of corporate marketing,
but something that is unique to the market in which this is being done.
We had our meeting with the RCO. Here's our certificate of mailing that went out.
And their letter of non-opposition is in the file here. One of the provisos that the RCO asked for
that we are happy to agree to, is to limit the size of the actual Citizens Bank branded material
to 500 square feet or less, which is about the same size as the five below branding on the
building next door to give the board a sense. That was the same proviso that was in the approval for
the five below sign, 500 square feet. So this is designed to be consistent with that also.
And with that, Washington West was in non-opposition.
So with that, I'd like to ask the board to unmute Lisa Tretien.
Lisa, if you can raise your virtual hand, please.
Could you state your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter?
Lisa, please unmute yourself and wait for the chair.
Hi. State your name, please, and spell it for the court reporter.
Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Lisa Cretien. It's spelled L-I-S-A. My last name is C-H-R-E-T-I-E-N.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
I do. I swear.
Proceed, counsel.
Thank you. Lisa, did you have a chance to hear my presentation this afternoon?
I did.
And do you adopt my statements as a true, correct, and your own as if you'd had a chance to more fully testify?
Thank you. Mr. Chair, we're happy to answer any questions the board may have.
Questions from the board?
Questions from the board?
Thank you. Thank you.
Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
I don't see any answer this time, Chair.
Planning Commission. Thank you, Chair Bergman and board members. David Effecto with the City
Planning Commission. The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the commercial mixed
use zoning at this location. The appellant is requesting three variances for installing signs
on their property for the proposed location and size. The appellant has not shown that an economic
detriment would accrue to the property if the proposed dimensional variances are not granted.
So the City Planning Commission recommends that the board deny the proposed signed variances.
Mr. Klein, do you want to respond?
I think, you know, what this mural is designed to do goes beyond economic detriment to the applicant.
This is both a piece of marketing and an aesthetic piece that will improve the skyline and aesthetic of that area generally.
And so we think it's it's contextually appropriate, even though it is not being driven by purely economic factors.
I 2023 00500726 to 28 Market Street.
I vote yes with proviso area of sign with the business logo shall not exceed 500 square feet.
James Snell my vote is yes with proviso
Ishmael Shaheed my vote is yes with the proviso
Thank you council
Number six
MI 2023
000 496
129 Washington Avenue
Stephen Pollack is the attorney
letter of support from queen village neighbors association letter of non-opposition from
council member squiller chair mr pollock is coming back in as a panelist now
i think i'm here here i am hi good afternoon mr
Mr. Pollock, could you say your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
Stephen with the S-T-E-P-H-E-N-G for middle initial, Pollock, P-O-L-L-O-C-K.
Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
I do, Mr. Chairman.
Could you identify your client, the relationship to this property?
I have with me today Kenneth Van Horn and Cindy Lee, who are, Ken is the owner of the property as an individual.
They together have been running Society Hill Beverage, the business that we're trying to reestablish since 2000.
business that we're trying to reestablish uh since um 20 2006 at this location and the beer
distributor was owned by a prior owner since 1990 uh at the same location so i have those with me
and if i can as i usually always try and ask uh if i could have nico realbuto my uh associate be
elevated to a panelist also because he will share the screen for me thank you and our vice chair
has a few questions for you sir
Good afternoon, Counselor. Do you agree to weigh the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its accuracy?
Good afternoon, Mr. Shahid. Yes, I do.
Have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that are needed to proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing?
I believe we have.
Thank you. Please proceed to share this reading.
Mr. Chairman, members of the board, if I could, Nico, thank you for allowing Nico to share.
Back in 2018, the zoning board granted a variance, and it's on the refusal to allow a single family, a single structured garage-like structure that used to house the Society Hill Beverage since 1990 and be replaced by this four-story or five-story building with eight-family dwellings.
Unfortunately, when they made the application, even though Society Hill Beverage was what was being replaced, the applicant only asked for a vacant commercial space slash warehouse on the first floor.
Ken Van Horn has been the owner and Cindy Lee have been the owners of this property and have conducted Society Hill Beverage since 2006 when they took over.
throughout our packet. And we have our exhibits A1 through A16. We have in our packet the
application showing going back to as far back as 1990, where a variance was granted
to allow this property to be used. And there it is. That's at A12 for retail sales,
pre-packaged foods as part of an existing retail and wholesale beer distributorship,
distributor. And that's one of the keys that's also happening. It says beer distributorship
in the refusal. In parentheses, it has wholesale sales and distribution. The property has always
been used for not only the wholesale, but retail sale. I don't want to get screwed up in that
and of malt beverages. And it also had the prepackaged food being allowed. When this was
filed by someone other than I and I wasn't involved in the 2018 case for what happened
with failure to call this what it's been and what it was intended to be used for ever since
Ken and Cindy decided to knock down the old structure and be the developer as well as the
occupant developer of the of the apartments they actually are going to live in the I think one of
the apartments. They will testify to this and can hopefully affirm my testimony and also house the
first floor as their new home for Society Hill Beverage. So we also have just after this at 813
and 1990 L&I memorandum. Again, it says beer distributor. And there you go. Beer distribution
with accessory retail sale of prepackaged foods. So it's historically been that way. They did not
down the building. That's true. And in the zoning law, you can argue that knocking down a building
100% is an intent to abandon, but there was never any intent to abandon Society Hill Beverage. In
fact, if we go to which I believe is at page 23 of our long list of exhibits, but it's the site
plans that were used in, not that one, but there you go. This was part of the site plan package
that was presented back in 2018 for the first floor.
And even though the application called
for a vacant commercial space,
we can blow it up just a shade, Nico.
Hopefully the board can see that it called it out
as Society Hill Beverage.
It's a 3,200 square foot space.
The two elevator and stair corridors you see
will be servicing the upstairs apartments.
So Society Hill Beverage is gonna be in that location.
And they called it out.
They said it right there on the plan. But when they presented to the board, for some reason, you know, as I said, I've been at this game about 46 years now. And I was livid when I saw what happened back in 2018. But we went. So that's where we're going with that. As a poster, what we posted on the property, besides.
As a poster, what we posted on the property, besides the zoning notice and the refusal, was we posted and then presented to, we provided this proposed proviso language.
It was tried to incorporate everything that had been given in the past, that there's a beer distributor store, including retail and wholesale beer sales and distribution with the retail sale of prepackaged foods as per the zoning permit.
and and one of the permits that the board actually when it granted its original variance and we have
no problem with this was that there would be no use of league street for ingress and regress for
the beer distributorship of course at that point it was only a beer distributorship didn't have
the apartments up above but there is no physical barrier or physical way for the trucks to come in
people to come in patrons to come in off of off of league street so we are adhering in our plan
to that nico go to the other which is page 27 which is the floor plan that we do have for the
for the beer distributorship so this would be how it would be used um the front part is washington
avenue the back part is leak street and as you can see from the store store uh part there's no access
to um leak street there is access up in the upper left corner but that is the um cylinder or cone
that services the apartments so we've tried tried to do that we did have a great meeting
with the queen village neighbors if you can pull up that letter um and the chairman piven
stated three different um provisos and we would love to have them incorporated because one it
does now cover the sale of pre-packaged foods to be allowed in addition to beverages but we are
concern that we don't want L&I to interpret, if the board is willing to grant us the variance
today, that beer distributor doesn't allow us to have the retail sale because that's always been
there as we've shown since 1990 on the property. And then Ken and Cindy took over in 2006.
And there is a sign that we never applied for a sign on this application, but there was a sign
that was shown in the 2018 plans.
And we could go to that one, Nico.
You'll see, it's just really a building identification sign.
I think we have, keep going.
You have to get to, keep going, keep going.
They had a sign that said, all right, maybe we passed it.
It just says, it just says over in Channel Letters,
South Street, I mean, Society Hill Beverage.
Is that it? There it is. I don't know if you can see it. Can you blow that up just a little bit? It was in black lettering. I mean, we're not asking for a sign, but if the board wanted to limit us to that sign, we're fine with that also.
So it was intended, therefore, that there was a hardship proven to this board back in 2018 that given the prior uses and everything like that and the new use, and now it's in the CMX2 zone, whereas before it was in a residential zone way back when, which required it to get the variances, that there was an intended commercial use for this floor.
And as I said, I will have Cindy and Ken testify to this.
It was their intent always, since they were the owners of Society Hill and operators of Society Hill, to take over this first floor and use it for that process.
So we would say that for years, since 1990, there's been a beer distributor at this location.
Neighbors have had to deal with people coming and going to be served at this location.
So I don't believe it's going to cause congestion in the public streets nor block any transportation that serves along Washington Avenue and that it will not be detrimental to health safety.
The neighborhood, given all these years and given the support of Queen Village that would surely know, they've really sort of agreed to this one two times because it was back in front of them in 2018.
And now in 2022, what happened was when they went to get their building permit for the beer distributorship, Ellen and I said, whoa, wait a second.
Guess what? You don't have approval for the beer distributorship.