it on the boards here um a significant increase in landscaping street trees stormwater management
uh our most recent prototype uh new interior um a drive-through uh that that makes sense and that
is efficient. We're keeping the parking spaces with traffic calming. I think you mentioned
some of the changes. We added in speed bumps. We added in crosswalks. We added in signage
with flashing signage at the different crosswalks. That's the site layout here. And as far as
what it would look like significant upgrade and in glazing glass you see
this is the the front this is the back this is the the window is looking now
into into the parking lot and then at the bottom there most of the McDonald's
locations on the drive-through because it's back of house there's usually not
tremendous amount of articulation working with the community group those
those we added this french fries that are like i think the first time in in phil in pennsylvania
um you know some type of architectural um um embellishments to uh to jazz up uh that that that
frontage there's two cases um first case is um a permit to you know what would be helpful
like there's opposition to this right um yeah there's a community letter right yes so there's
opposition yeah what might be helpful is to say here's the opposition this is what we've done
try to work that in there did you go to the meeting yeah absolutely okay so why don't you
talk about yeah yeah we had um i think it was five meetings uh five meetings we had we had two
meetings um with uh walnut hill with the the full the full group um and then we had uh numerous
meetings with um their zoning president and if you look at the letter um here's the refusal
i'll get right back to it the cmx 2.5 requires that this building um that the restaurant be
built right up to the property lines both on chestnut street and on 52nd street which is
basically what we have now um and what they wanted they wanted um the building to remain
up on those frontages on Chestnut Street, on 52nd Street, and it was really kind of a philosophical.
That was their position. This is what the zoning code says.
Our drive-through right now, because the building on Chestnut Street, it's not all the way up.
There's a setback. On 52nd Street, it is up against the property frontage.
The only drive-through configuration that you can have with the building,
with the restaurant on those two frontages, is what we have now.
and let me just let me just get right to this here
this is what we have is what we have right now you see you see the building set back off the
chestnut street it's on it's on 52nd street and that drive through uh and justin you know maybe
we'll we'll get right in if you'd like i can get right into john why do you why don't you state
If you'd like, I can get ready to jump.
Why don't you state your name and spell for the stenographer?
your name is bell for the stenographer yes justin clee
Yes, Justin Klee, J-U-S-T-I-N-K-L-E-E.
Do you swear a firm to tell the truth, told the truth, nothing worth the truth?
Go ahead, Campbell.
Well, Justin, you're a professional engineer?
Correct, yes.
I'm a licensed professional engineer in the state of Pennsylvania.
I'm a senior project manager at Bowler Engineering.
And you've worked at Bowler for how many years?
Roughly about 10 years.
And you've designed, how many McDonald's restaurants have you designed over your career?
Hundreds of McDonald's.
Okay. And you've actually been working on this location since I think it was 2017, correct?
Correct. Yes. Yeah. So we looked at originally back in 2017-18 a remodel to put a new facade, upgrade the ADA parking.
And then for the last probably two or three years, we've been bouncing around ideas as to how to maximize the efficiency on the lot,
Not given the zoning ordinances, working with city planning, making sure that we have the best possible site for both the community and the applicant, in this case, McDonald's.
And the current drive-thru right now, let me just, I'll show you this.
The current drive-thru, there is, how many access points?
You've got an access point off of 52nd Street?
correct there's a there's a one-way ingress only off of 52nd and then there is an ingress and
egress onto chestnut and is this is this the is this the uh ingress off of um 52nd street that is
yes and what are the what what are the the failings right now of this hole this configuration here
so the main the main challenge with the configuration in a whole you have two
separate drive-through lanes, one coming from Chestnut Street, the other one coming from 52nd
that merge into one singular point. The amount of stacking you can actually achieve before that
merge point that goes around the rear of the building out to 52nd, you can really only hold
two cars before it starts to stack out into 52nd and onto the sidewalk blocking vehicles in 52nd
and pedestrians on the sidewalk. The challenge with Chestnut, the Chestnut access is that's
supposed to be in from chestnut through the site a two-way access right now there's the drive the
drive-through taking up a portion of this uh this driveway access lane so any vehicles trying to
enter the site to get to the parking um has to fight with the existing drive-through configuration
and right now just with how busy that location is it's stacking out not only out to 52nd but
out to Chestnut, which also, it blocks the vehicles trying to leave the drive-thru. It
also blocks vehicles that are parked in the ADA stalls in the rest of the parking spaces
on both sides of the drive aisle. It makes it very difficult for any vehicles to be able
to pull out and to circulate the rest of the site. And during times of there's large stacking,
say vehicles coming in from chestnut wants to wants to park um if if there's a lot of stacking
they would actually have to drive into oncoming you know the the oncoming lane in order to find
a parking space there so right now there's several inadequacies along with the the tight
turning radius to get even get into that drive-through lane and that's and that's and that's
right here correct yes you're asking vehicles to make either a complete u-turn coming from chestnut
or a hairpin left turn okay so you've got the car the cars who are this inadequate queuing area
on the 52nd street you've got the cars coming off of chestnut street who are literally blocking the
cars that are parked because the queuing lane is in the middle of the parking lot that is correct
the reason why we show this and we put so much emphasis on the existing conditions is because
Because to meet the zoning code, we basically have to have the same design that we have now as far as the location of the restaurant on 52nd and on Chestnut Street.
And again, Chestnut Street, we're actually set back now.
And so you talked about in 2017, we did like a freshening up of the location, right?
And that was to try to extend the life of the restaurant.
Right, stay close to the mic.
And that was to try to extend the life of the restaurant as much as was possible.
as much as possible from from the applicant's view is more putting a band-aid on the location
yeah but it is at this point in dire need of a rebuild right and it's not only because of
the interior condition of the restaurant the systems uh the challenges in the systems the
inefficient kitchen um but it's all primarily also because of this this drive-through configuration
and the parking configuration and the conflicts that are that exist and have now existed for many
many years correct yes okay and i i know you've been studying this since 2017 if there was a way
if there was a way efficiently and safely to design this and to be able to meet the code as
efficiently and safely to design this and to be able to
far as um having the building up against 52nd street and having the restaurant up against
chestnut street is there a way to do it we would have designed it that way if there if
if there was a way to do it because there's no other there's no other refusals that were issued
for this application other than this this one correct correct fully compliant as far as use
yes use landscaping um any other setbacks or buffering that's related yeah yeah great
do the board have any other questions for for mr clay at this at this point
but why don't you go back to the drawing this is past drawing yes yes back to the original yeah
and what we'll do is when you finish up then everybody will be actually is that the two of
them side by side could we leave that one up yeah let me just go to the
you're looking at it
I WANT TO PUT THEM SIDE BY SIDE?
I WANTED TO SHOW THE BOARD WHAT THE PROPOSED IS RIGHT NOW.
yeah right there here we go now justin this is the this is the proposed correct well he's
he's got a chart here yeah this one has both okay yeah okay so if you just pull that one
up and make it full screen it was exhibit a yeah there we go we'll go back
how many meetings did you say you had with the community we had two we had two um meetings with
the full with the full community and then we had um four meetings uh with the zoning chair
where is that here i'm just trying to find that in here
and i will tell you that
the walnut hill right yeah and if you look at the if you look at the ladder let me just find
this right here where is that here here we go all right here we go
did you have a specific question this one
yeah no no we had we had we had um we met with the um chair of the zoning committee four times
and it really it was you know as they said as they said in the um as they said in the letter
um we we made change after change after change here we added in um the pedestrian crosswalks
from each one of the frontages, from Chestnut Street, from 52nd Street, from Sampson Street,
also from each one of the sides. We added in speed bumps throughout the site. We added in
signs, flashing signs. So, you know, I think in every way, what we've tried to do here is-
Freddie, you're trying to interpret the letter. You're about to say,
if you read the letter i think it's done yeah yeah yeah tell us what you're saying yeah
i guess yeah before you do that can you get hide on the zoom notification that you have
that's blocking the drawing there we go there we go yeah if you look if you look at the letter i'll
The Walnut Hill, they oppose this because what they really see is this, it was really kind of an aspirational that we don't have a drive-thru, and that's really what this became about.
This became about us getting rid of, you know, I think getting rid of the drive-thru that we've had, you know, throughout the whole history of this restaurant as far as I know, and it is an absolutely critical nature to the restaurant.
52nd and Chestnut. Chestnut Street, I think, as we all know, is a major east-west thoroughfare.
It's probably the most important thoroughfare coming from
Upper Darby, coming from West Philly, coming from University City into Center City.
Upper Darby, coming from West Valley, coming from University City into Center City. It's very important to our customers to be able to use that drive-through. They have used that drive-through. And what we're trying to do is balance, making sure that that drive-through is as efficient as possible. At the same time, this restaurant is critical to the community. And I think you've seen some of the other applications for McDonald's where they've been getting away from having a good-sized dining room.
we are keeping in this plan we are keeping a over 60 I think it's about 60 seat dining room
this this location if you go in there in the mornings it's full of seniors who are having
their coffee who are having their breakfasts and you know Mr. Glantzman here who's on behalf of
McDonald's that was that was a value and a priority for this location to keep to make it
safer to have the drive-through, the circulation, but also to keep that sit down. It's really one of
the main community centers in this part of the neighborhood. So that was what we were balancing
in. But we had, to make this many million dollar investment, we had to come up with a circulation
pattern that was just so much better than what right now it is. It's a mess out there, to be
I live within walking distance. It backs up on 52nd. As Justin said, our engineer, we have problems on Chestnut Street. And that was really kind of the balance here. And that's the one refusal. We couldn't get away, we couldn't get around it.
We worked with city planning. Streets department, if you look at exhibit tab 6, streets department approved this. We worked with city planning. We added in landscaping. Again, there's a significant increase in the landscaping.
We want to be good neighbors to our vehicular customers, but also to our pedestrian and the customers. And that's, I think, what we've really done here at this location.
um you know that's but that was the philosophical issue that we ran into it and what i would say
here is and i've never had a letter like this um if you look at the letter um even though we have
put this is what the this is what the this is yeah this is what the community yeah this is what the
community group wrote even though we oppose this proposal we want to note that the applicant engaged
repeatedly with the community to address our concerns including adding seating speed bumps
installing legged crosswalks adding a new crosswalk and improving the building design
we wish all applicants were as open to listening and revising the plans so we we it it basically
came down to we we just want you on the corners you know right right up against the corners
and the hardship here you know is we don't need to guess whether that's possible or not we've
had years of experience of what will happen if this restaurant is built up to you know up to
chestnut up to 52nd street and the drive-through and we know it's it's it's it's not a plan that
I don't think we could I don't even think we could get that approved by by the streets department
anywhere I mean Justin you said to me you said to me this the existing configuration of the drive
through is is which is the only way to meet the code is the one that you would I would I would
never proposed at this point. It's inadequate. The stacking distances are inadequate and will cause
public health and safety issues out on the connecting streets. So it's something we would
steer away from. Yeah. Let alone blocking the sidewalks and stuff like that. Are you done
your presentation? I'm not. I'd like to introduce Gerald Glantzman. Yeah, but I mean, just to have
your testimony adopted. Excuse me. Remember, there's also another PLS designed that we need
to address yes there's a there's a there's a second case here i saw that yeah
again we're putting four signs up is that yeah there's there's here i'll just show you real
quick here the um did the neighbors mention anything about the sign no there was there was
there was there was no issues with that was why is that not okay
I THINK THE SIZE OF THIS FILE IS SO BIG THAT IT IS GIVING US PROBLEMS.
NOW IT'S LOCKING UP.
JUSTIN, CAN YOU CREATE THE BOARD?
HERE'S THE, IF I MAY SHARE THE BOARD.
THIS IS RELATIVE TO THE SIGNS?
yeah yeah this is the sign so we've got here's the here's the drive here's the drive through here
right um we have in philadelphia you can have you can have four you can have two menu boards
In Philadelphia, you can have four, you can have two menu boards. We're proposing four, which is what we do on, I think, every one of these applications. Again, this is for efficiency of the drive-thru.
Sure, this is for efficiency of the drive-thru. We have a pre-browse, and then we have, you look at the menu items, and then you actually order from here from the order board.
So, we have two lanes here. So, there's a pre-browse on each one, and then there's the actual order board. That's the only refusal on signage that we're seeking. Otherwise, we're fully code compliant.
And Walnut Hill's never said anything.
No, there was no issues. There was no issues with Walnut Hill. And, you know, they were very clear. Like, this is, I mean, we were even clear with the zoning committee and the zoning chair that the investment
that McDonald's was looking to make here,
many, many millions of dollars,
that this would be a tremendous sign
and vote of confidence for the corridor here.
This would be, I think, give confidence
that others can make investments here.
McDonald's, when McDonald's comes
and makes these types of investments,
that's not a good look right now.
That's what's out there right now.
That is a building that is 40 years old.
if you look at the back of that on 52nd street this was built as a multi-tenant building so the
whole back of this building is is empty vacant is boarded is boarded up um this is not a good sign
for the community but making the investment uh is you know and i think everyone acknowledged
it would be a really positive sign uh for this community and for this corridor so okay
no no i'd like to i think to now introduce your doctor testimony is that what you're bringing
them up um i'm gonna have justin the dot i'm gonna have joe glanceman from mcdonald's just
talk a little bit about mcdonald's and the branding and what they're looking to do mr glansman can you
hi sir could you please state your name is spelled for the stock sure it's gerald glansman it's g-e-r-a-l-d
Last name Glanzmann, G-L-A-N-Z-M-A-N-N.
Do you swear or affirm and tell the truth, told the truth, nothing but the truth?