if you guys have them or need clarity on what we're showing. Thank you. Any questions from the
board? No, Mr. Chairman. No. Rachel, do you have any other witnesses you need? No. Thank you. Anyone
else would like to testify in this case, please raise your hand. Go ahead to this time, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Planning Commission? This is Ron Bednar, City Planning.
The property is indicated for center city commercial mixed use. The city plan recommended
request of variance be granted provided no overnight boarding services thank you MI 2021-002433
1213-19 walnut street my vote is yes and we don't need overnight services correct correct
Jennifer I just want to clarify your overnight meaning like left unattended but there will be
animals who are being uh serviced by a doctor that may be there overnight so i just don't want to
you know what i'll just i'll remove that we'll just say uh again i'll do it again mi 2021 that
zero zero two four three three one two one three dash one nine walnut street my vote is yes my
vote is yes my name is carol tenere professor plaza my vote is yes james now my vote is yes
Thomas Holloman my vote is yes thank you and welcome to Philadelphia thank you thank you
thank you guys so much we really appreciate it MI 2021-000303 1240 Harrison Street
this is a second listing is there anyone here for 1240 Harrison Street
no hands chair thank you this was the second listing mi 2021 that's 000303
1240 harrison street my vote is to dismiss harold tenary my vote is to dismiss professor plaza
dismissed. Thomas Holloman, dismissed. Thank you. MI number three on our list, MI 2021-003193,
127 North 32nd Street. Darwin Beauvais is the attorney of record.
uh as of my notes indicate we've not yet received a letter from the rco but that'll
be cleared up once mr bovay gets sworn in mr bovay has been promoted to panelists
please spell your full name sir and i'll swear you in
there we go
there we go mr chairman members of the board how are you well thank you good how are you
it's always good to see you um i didn't hear you earlier so i don't know if you want me to swear in
yes please spell your full name and i'll swear you in all right first name darwin d-a-r-w-i-n
last name Beauvais. That's B as in boy, E-A-U-V as in victory, A-I-S as in Sam. I'm from the law
firm of Dilworth Paxson, and I represent the applicant in this matter. Do you swear a firm
to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth? I do. Ms. Tenere has some questions for
you. Okay. Darwin, do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to its
accuracy? I agree to the waiving of the reading but I do not stipulate to the accuracy and I'll
explain as part of my presentation. Okay have you emailed the exhibit packet with proof of ownership
tax compliance refusal or referral photos and or plans of the property five days in advance of this
hearing and have you met with the RCO and do you have a letter? Yes. Thank you you may proceed.
Yes, and if we can also raise as panelists, Stephen Griggs, the president of Republic Properties, as well as John Mendencorp from Pannoni Engineers, as well as Richard Hayden, who is the local development partner.
And if I could share my screen.
So do they all need to be promoted or just audio?
um i i guess audio thank you
why don't we get begin your presentation then we can bring them on individually just be sworn in
okay so 127 north 32nd street i just want to give the board a little bit of history and i'll
start so first and foremost we i submitted exhibits 1 through 15 that includes the tax
clearance certificate the deed zoning appeals site plans zoning maps aerials elevations a memorandum
of law and support letter from scepter as well as photograph the notice letter well as photographs
from of the property um scrolling down i would like the board's attention to uh page 27 let's start
there. Clearly I'm not doing that right. Okay, so 127 North 32nd Street is actually part
of the scepter rail yard and if you can see my cursor this is that parking area and that building
is what we are building on that building is the scepter crew quarters um that's where the crew
will go and conduct their business while they're dealing with the rail traffic.
But with that, and I want to give it to Stephen Graetz, who's new to Philadelphia in developing
this project. This is an industrial area, as you can tell from this map. And because of that,
This is what we're looking at. The actual property looks like this.
There's nothing there. Broad iron. And it sits right in the middle of Drexel University.
So that's Drexel right across the street. This is looking more north.
from the corner so and there's the crew quarters and the parking now i i i want the board to um
hear from steven great as to
why they're interested in doing something like this and if he can like i mentioned be promoted to
i don't know if you call it panelists or or yeah what's his full name even great if if he can
i'm sorry mr bouvet would he be under your name no no we we are
would he be under your name no no we we are all sitting in different locations right now
so i have someone with your name with their hands really okay let's try that
if you hear me and double then you know
this is the unmuted steve grigg okay steve please spell your full name
Stephen Grigg, G as in George, R as in Richter, I as in me, and G, G.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you.
Mr. Bovee.
Mr. Griggs, can you tell everybody where you work?
I'm the president and CEO of Republic Properties Corporation.
We're based out of Washington, D.C.
And have you developed in Philadelphia before?
Our predecessor firm did Franklin Mills years ago in the doing business as Western Development Corporation.
okay and so but it's within the last few years last 10 years this is pretty much the first
iconic project in southeastern pennsylvania correct affirmative all right can you tell
us a little bit about republic properties well republic is a firm that does work around the
country. Our principal offices are in Washington, D.C. We have an office in San Francisco and San
Jose, California, and an office in Greenwich, Connecticut. We've built projects from the West
Coast to Florida to D.C., and we do a variety of landmark projects, principally in Washington, D.C.
and in California, but we've built buildings around the country. We've done residential,
retail, multifamily projects, and we've also been responsible for office mixed-use developments.
And you can look at our website, republicfamilyofcompanies.com,
for some additional information if you wish.
And what kind of building are we building here?
This is a cell, a purpose-built cell and gene therapy facility,
which is a combination as the lower levels,
which extend out there below the first level green roof that you see in the
picture,
are really three levels of manufacturing's process space for cell and gene therapy.
It's unusual to have these facilities located in a multi-story building,
but we're doing this in the edge of University City,
and those three floors are really two-story high floors in a normal sense of 21 to 23-foot floor-to-floor heights.
And on top of those, there is a mechanical floor that provides services up and down, and then five floors of purpose-built general laboratory with some office-use space above that, and then another set of mechanical uses above that.
Now, these sit on top of a podium, which is because of the slope of 32nd Street and because of the need to put in replacement facilities for SEPTA down on the lowest level.
These are sit on top of a podium that's about a half a level above 32nd Street.
The existing SEPTA facilities are really down about six to eight feet below 32nd Street, which rises as you go north from Market heading north along there.
So the street slopes slightly. You can see an indication of that on some of the drawings.
If you look closely at it, it's a little tough with these photos, so that you really have a cellar that in some zoning situations, it would be called a cellar, which is where the crew facilities are.
But because the Powelton Yards are built based...
But because the Powleton yards are built basically half a level out, it gets treated as though it's
above grade. So this particular building sits up so that podium is up a little bit above this fence
and it tucks over the top of the SEPTA facilities which have to be replaced underneath it
in order to keep the pulp and yards operating.
The site itself is less than three-quarters of an acre.
Understood.
And I appreciate that, right?
So then I was – I think the board has an idea of what the design
and what the uses are.
Excuse me, Darwin?
Can you explain what's the podium in architectural terms?
that's thomas holliman asking the question uh that that's that's just a platform upon it's
just a term of art it's just a platform upon which the building rises from which is a which
is an elevated uh slightly elevated platform therefore is the floor level uh yes there it's
partially occupied and there's parking up above. The podium is the cellar level, which is the dark
level that you see some cars there, is actually below the street level, below 32nd Street,
six to nine feet, depending on where along 32nd Street you measure it, nominally six to nine feet
below it thank you so um so let me just get back to the rendering you know the the and and and i
appreciate the architectural um uh uh proudness but if i could just restate it in layman terms
right the picture that you're seeing here if you notice that there is the uh a bright white brick
that looks like it's hitting ground level that and then you'll see cars you'll see columns
and then you see another uh white brick running along 32nd street in a curve and then you see
columns and then you see the building right uh steven would you say that's the podium
uh the podium is the is the the if you go to the right you'll see the parking that's that you come
in off of 32nd street and rise up to that level to get up above the septa level which is down
sunken below 32nd street okay all right so it's anything that brings the building to street level
Okay, so with that, I don't want to trouble the board with more of the design because
I want to address the refusal.
So, if we can go there.
Our refusals, we received two use refusals and one zoning refusal.
The first one was dealing with our maximum Florida area ratio.
We were considered to be 5% over the max.
We submit that's somewhat negligible.
If you look at the total number of gross floor, the GSF, the gross square feet,
we're under 10,000 additional GSF.
We think that it doesn't create that much of an impact,
considering we are on rail yard level going to street level.
The third refusal deals with the maximum number or the minimum number of parking spaces, and those spaces in itself is a result of the laboratory uses that we have.
They calculated that we're at 165 spaces, but we're only providing 71 spaces.
That in itself, we can get into that in a few minutes because I would like to have Mr. Dick Hayden to speak. He's the local development partner and both refusals center around our limitations with the property as a result of building on a rail yard that's overseen by the
of building on a rail yard that's overseen by the Federal Transit Administration
and implemented and overseen as well by SAPTA. So if we can also promote or allow
Richard Hayden to speak. Mr Hayden, please spell your full name and I'll swear you in.
Richard Hayden, R-I-C-H-A-R-D-H-A-Y-D-E-N.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Thank you, Dick.
Now, Mr. Hayden, what I have on the screen right now is Exhibit 13 in everyone's packet.
And can you describe to me where did this letter come from?
So to provide context for this letter, as Mr. Bovee has laid out, SEPTA owns this parcel.
And as you saw from the earlier aerial presentation from Mr. Bovee, this is the only piece of a 23-acre parcel which can be developed on SEPTA's yards.
The rest of the parcel are, frankly, active rail yards.
So SEPTA undertook this project pursuant to a change in federal law in 2015 with a 2016 guidance where the Federal Transit Administration released guidance documents saying we want to encourage transit agencies around the country to develop parcels that they think have a higher and better use and bring in private development.
The conditions, however, for what's called a joint development agreement under the FTA rules require that you maintain the current public use.
So for design purposes, we had to start with what I call the rail grade level in terms of design.
So you saw that in the rendering, which meant not only do we have to replace the crew quarters,
SEPTA took advantage of this opportunity to expand it by 50%, modernize the interior, and then increase the parking along their rail grade bases.
So what we're left with is the only developed piece of this parcel.
Normally in an I-2 zone, as you guys know, an industrial zone, there's an expectation that you've got a lot of room to do surface parking that's accessory of the building.
That's not the case here.
The tracks are active.
we are occupying 97% of the parcel to accommodate the parking that we can provide on the site,
which is the septal level as well as the deck at the street level for our tenants.
The other issue that we had to consider in terms of parking was that, as Mr. Green mentioned,
this is cell and gene therapy, which has FDA approved, will have FDA approved manufacturing
capacity on site, we have to be very sensitive to vibration issues associated with that kind
of work.
So anytime you try to add and stack multiple levels of parking, you're really subjecting
your uses above that to vibration and other issues associated with, frankly, parking on
So we retained a vibration consultant and expert.
so we're able to program what limited vibration we have now into the building columns
so we can mitigate any vibration impacts for our FDA-certified manufacturing capacity.
So we have an impracticality and impossibility to add additional parking to this site.
And that's pretty much explained?
Yeah, I think that's the correspondence from the general manager of SEPTA
explain the limitations of the site, as well as, frankly, their requirements to first satisfy FTA
and then satisfy their own safety requirements. So the design for the rail grade level has already
been approved by the FTA and SEPTA, and that dictated and drove what we can do from that
point forward, meaning higher up. Yes. So with that said, and thank you, Ms. Hayden. With that said,
I would like the board's attention to back to our refusal, if you will, the third point.
If we look at in the middle, it says we also received the refusal for section 14-516-3b.2,
which basically this is saying
Basically, this is saying when you have a garage, that facade has to have active uses.
when you have a garage
that facade
Now, something about this was very familiar to me at the time, and I realized why.
And if I can stop sharing for a moment and go to, if the board can indulge me.
I am on, I am on the zoning code website and we're looking at 14-15, 5-16.
The particular reference is 3B.2.
This is the reference where it discussed that it should have active uses.
I realized when I read this, I knew why it was very familiar to me,
because this is defining the school pool yards development area.
This does not fit in school pool yards.
It's not part of the Schuylkill Yards development area.
And I did go back and forth with L&I.
I believe Mr. Hayden even discussed it with the Planning Commission.
It is not Schuylkill Yards.
It is, if anything, it abuts Drexel's campus, and Drexel is not Schuylkill Yards.