This property is currently an office building and we're proposing to put a pharmacy in the property.
Just for context, I have an aerial of the area of this property is zoned, RSD3.
The property is off of Redline Road, going north on Bree Road.
um there are a number of medical offices currently in the building and also in the area
the some of the tenants in the building currently include a pediatrician and a dentist and so we
felt that it was you know a natural addition to have a pharmacy in the building um the tenant
that we have uh potentially going into this property assuming that the application is granted
this afternoon is called Royal Pharmacy, and their proposed hours of operation would be from
8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and so this would be really, you know, a good addition because someone who's
going to see a doctor's office in the building can then go and visit the pharmacy on the way out.
You did receive a refusal on this application because the pharmacy use is prohibited in this
residential RSD three zone districts.
And again, just for context,
this is.
The property in question, this was taken from Verree Road.
As you can see, it's set back pretty far from Verree.
Plenty of parking.
There's a number, as I said,
the number of medical uses currently in the building.
Again, plenty of parking.
And just for context, I got some pictures of the outside of the building, just so you
can see how large it is.
And the pharmacy is actually going to be located right down here behind two doors.
So that's the door that would lead into the pharmacy, and this would be the door leading
into the rest of the office building.
So we did meet with the affected RCO for this property, the Somerton Civic Association.
we met with them on October 11th of 2022. And they were generally in support of the application
with a proviso that they wanted to have the property owner record certain restrictions
against the property. Some of the things that they wanted to see, you know, not ever be able to
open at the property included things like drug paraphernalia sales. They didn't want to see a
medical marijuana dispensary. And so my client was in agreement to record a deed with those
restrictions. And that restrictive covenant was filed this week. And due to that agreement that
we reached with the RCO, they were in support. There were 20 votes that were in support of the
application. And as I noted earlier, we also have a letter of support from Councilman O'Neill's
office. So with me this afternoon is Jeff Darin. He's a representative of the ownership. So Jeff,
if you could hit the raise hand button on your screen, we'll bring you forward to identify you
and I'll ask you a few questions. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Hi, could you state your name and spell for the court reporter, please?
Judge, you hear us?
Is your hand raised?
Yes, it is.
You just unmuted.
Hi, could you state your name, please, and spell for the court reporter?
do we turn name hand uh chairman council you're an officer of the court we're you're an officer
of the court we will take your testimony i was just going to right questions questions
from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman
questions or comments from the virtual audience
i see no further hints mr chair planning commission this is ron bednar city planning
while this property is currently indicated for residential on the city plan given the surrounding
use context recommend the request of variance be granted thank you mi 2022 004 970 10125 re-road
I vote yes. Thomas Tomlin, my vote is yes. James Snell, my vote is yes.
Thank you so much. You have your three votes. Thank you so much. Sure. Thanks for your time.
Number five, MI 2022, 004-683-2314 North American Street. Hercules Griegos is the attorney.
uh nara square community alliance did not reach an agreement on the application
but does have a petition in support
sir mr grugos will be rejoined okay
Good afternoon, members of the board. Hercules Grigos, 1835 Market, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, representing PPFSS2314 North American Street, LLC, equitable owner of the property.
Counsel, just for the record, could you spell your name for the court reporter?
Yes, first name H-E-R-C-U-L-E-S, last name G-R-I-G-O-S.
Do you swear for him to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Mr. Howellman has just a few questions for you.
Good afternoon, counsel.
Do you agree to waive the reading of the refusal and stipulate to his accuracy?
I agree to the waiving.
There is one typo that I will reference in my presentation.
did you email all of the exhibits and documents as required five days in advance to this hearing
please proceed and share your screen great thank you very much uh mr chairman and members of the
board uh let's see green green button there it is it's up coming up okay can everybody see it
yep thanks so much uh we're here today with an application for construction
of a Safeguard Self-Storage facility on the vacant lot at 2314 North American Street.
I have with me today Stanley Bonilla, who is the Senior Vice President of Development at Safeguard
Self-Storage on behalf of the Equitable Owner, as well as Elizabeth Norton from Pannoni and Chris
Michelek from SGW Architecture, Project Engineer and Project Architect, respectively.
um for context safeguard uh is a premier self-storage company uh with locations nationwide
they have eight existing facilities here in philadelphia and they're seeking to open a
ninth facility uh at 2314 north american street um we're here today you know uh it's a 40 000
square foot lot um and i'll just scroll down here uh fast of course i'm out of practice mr chairman
uh the lot is bound by north american to the east york street to the north and bodine street to the
west um and just for um i'll give you some more site context but i did want to respond to the
procedure we procedurally we uh met in october with nara square uh community alliance as well
Community Alliance, as well as NARA Square Action Network, the two RCOs, the NARA Square Community
as nara square action network the two rcos
I suppose.
Alliance being the coordinating RCO. You'll see from this that we had nine votes to support the
project and nine votes to support the project with conditions. And the conditions were really
be able to come to an agreement with regarding local hiring. And, you know, we worked really
hard. And I'm excited to say that we did come to an agreement last night. And we are, we finalized
community benefits agreement with NARS Square. And we are just waiting, you know, Safeguard is a large
company we're waiting for our corporate sign off from above so i've spoken with both rcos as well
as the councilwoman's office and i've spoken with the solicitor as well and we're hoping to present
our case today um and just hold the vote until um until we get this uh uh community benefits
agreement signed which um i feel will be forthcoming in the next couple days so i just
wanted to put that out there um that we worked really hard to get everybody on board and the
the agreement is really a local hiring and and uh inclusion uh type community benefits agreement so
with that i'll continue um just working through we had numerous um neighbors that uh signed
petitions and support um i think 29 near neighbors signed petitions and support um and this was our
mailing where some folks went out and knocked on those doors within 250 feet. This is just some
context photos of the site. As you can see, it's currently a vacant lot. Here's your survey.
And the site is on ICMX. And as the board is aware, the storage use is a permitted use in ICMX.
So from a use perspective, bulk massing project is compliant with the ICMX zoning.
The reason why we're here is, and I'm sure you see this often with self-storage, the parking ratios for self-storage really fall more in line with larger industrial warehouse buildings and not the traditional self-storage.
So the zoning code requires, I believe, based on the size, 51 accessory parking spaces and six off-street loading zones.
We're proposing 12 parking spaces and two loading zones, which, based on Safeguard's vast experience, is more than enough to service this use, which we believe is a really benign use.
Is that the correction you're talking about?
Correct.
the 9 is 12 yeah the the refusal says 9 but if you see in the it's you know um it it was uh 12
and you know i counted them up a couple times just to make sure it's 11 plus the uh the one
accessory so we have 12 12 parking spaces and two and the refusal noted nine so thank you for
reminding me um so these are our zoning plans um as you see it's approximately about 39 000
square foot lot into your layout we have small office here and your typical storage lockers
hours of operation are approximately 8 to 6 p.m property is you know full security
cameras lighting I believe you can it'll be manned from about 9 to 6 access from about
8 a.m. to 10 p.m. through key fob or code. And as I said, it's about a hundred thousand square
foot building, 11 bike school spaces, two off street loading zones. We actually removed an
existing curb cut from Bodine Street to have one curb cut on North American, which we think will
allow better access and less car or truck access onto Bodine Street, which is a more residential
street. Typical hours of operation I gave you. And some of the things that we were looking to do is
make sure that we hire local. There's about three to four permanent jobs at this location that we
expect working with the community to help find members of the community and talking to the
trades to make sure that we if there's members of the trades that are in the neighborhood that
they'll have the opportunity to work on this site and I'll just scroll down with some other
information again here is the meeting summary
Again, here was the meeting summary.
three.
And then we did add a letter into your file from our civil engineer that really went through the trip generation and the parking,
just to confirm that the estimated trip generations for self-storage sites are amongst the lowest.
um and the parking you know from a traffic and parking perspective um is really a a low
parking generator um and i believe panoni is here if anyone has any questions but um you can see the
the the um uh the conclusion there is based on the trip generation and parking generation estimates
from the traffic engineer the provided parking spaces and proposed site um are anticipated to
sufficient um and then i will also just note um uh just for context i mean these are four
self-storage facilities um that uh were recently approved by this board in the last two or three
years and just anecdotally you could see 33 east woodlawn 12 parking spaces uh 339 east lehigh
avenue five parking spaces uh 2351 south swanson and south philadelphia eight parking spaces
and 5350 ogons avenue 11 parking spaces so this is typical of this use um and typical
um what we see so um again we we were um uh worked really hard um to to get everybody on board
um and uh we are confident that we will get this uh letter signed this cba and uh we asked the
board just hold the vote we worked with the councilwoman's office um so why don't we do
this why don't you have a representative of great adopt your testimony great uh stanley bonilla
available mr bonilla has been allowed to speak sir uh i could you state your name and spell it
please for the court reporter. Good afternoon. My name is Stanley Bonilla, S-T-A-N-L-E-Y,
Bonilla, B-O-N-I-L-L-A. Right. Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth,
nothing but the truth? I do. Proceed, counsel. Stanley, have you heard my testimony?
Is it correct and true, and do you adopt it as your own? I have, and I do. Great. Thank you.
questions from the board no mr chairman no mr chairman questions or comments from the virtual
audience mr chair i have miss elizabeth norton with her hand raised i have allowed her to speak
at this time sir hi could you state your name and spell it please for the court reporter
i think she's with us that's our engineer mr chairman okay well we're fine we don't
we're just there to answer questions all right anybody else in the virtual audience
Mr. Sloan Foulkes, sir, with his hand raised, I have a lot of words.
Hi, Mr. Foulkes.
Good afternoon, Chairman Bergman and CBA board. Can you hear me?
We can. Could you state your name and spell for the court reporter?
Thank you, sir. Happy New Year to all.
Thank you.
My name is Sloan Fuchs, S-L-O-A-N-E-F as in fire, O-L-K-S, representing the Office of Councilwoman Ketsi M. Lozado, 7th District, room 316 City Hall.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Yes, sir, I do.
Proceed.
Okay. The applicant has met with the RCO, Norris Square Community Alliance, and has garnered a letter or a letter that they had not reached agreement.
I'm not going to recount the community vote because the applicant's attorney already had stated that.
But this office also has received a letter of petition in support of the variance request, as well as a letter of support from Norris Square Community Alliance.
The applicant has been through the community design review and completed the process.
This office recognizes that the applicant has been in good faith conversations with the community regarding a community benefits agreement and have met as recently as Friday, January 6th with representatives for the applicant to make final revisions to an agreement in preparation for this meeting.
We also acknowledge the efforts of the community in working towards an acceptable compromise.
This office also understands the terms of the CBA may not be enforceable by the ZBA and are also not enforceable by this office.
In light of that, this office will offer a letter of support once the community benefits agree.
will offer a letter of support once the community benefits agreement has been activated by signature of both parties.
I'm available for any questions, sir. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Folks. We understand.
Anyone else in the virtual audience?
Sir, I have a, oh, I saw a hand up, but she's put it down, sir.
All right, Planning Commission.
This is Ron Bednar, City Planning.
This property is indicated for industrial commercial mixed use on the city plan.
The proposal successfully completed the Civic Design Review last year.
Therefore, we recommend the request for Venice to be granted.
Thank you.
Hillary, correct me if I'm wrong.
The case is closed except for a letter from the community and the council person.
uh yes we can we can do it that way that that is fine mr chair um and i and i believe there's a
couple other people have raised have raised their hands but yes we can close the record except for
those two letters okay thank you do we want to go back to see who else is in the audience
i think we should mr checks one of the sure sure yeah sure jason yes i'm miss nilda pimento with
hand raised i have allowed him to speak sure hi could you state your name and spell it please for
the court reporter yes good afternoon uh mr chairman and hi yes my name is pimentel n-i-l-d-a
P-I-M-E-N-T-L
I'm a co-chair
of NASCAN,
the Norris Square Community Action
Network, a registrar
CEO. We respectfully
request that the letter that we
submitted... Okay, just one
minute. Do you swear or affirm
to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth? Yes, I do.