or not that you asked for but their client would be willing to accept one was commercial trash
pickup one was limiting the use to state inspections and then one was a temporary
variance for the use is that correct it would be a board feels so inclined given you know the
the discussion with the community and and there's not feel comfortable to issue a permanent
variance we we would ask and hope that the board considers a temporary variance of five years
Okay. All right. Thank you. I just want to make sure I had those since we'll have to hold this
and come back later. Thank you. Questions or comments from the virtual audience?
Chair, we have Charles Richardson. They have been admitted and allowed to speak.
Mr. Richardson, please proceed. You just state your name.
Mr. Chair, Charles Richardson, Office of Councilman, Bass Room 508 City Hall.
I'm very familiar with that block. I used to park on that block every day. I worked for a CDC
that is on Fifth Street. And I know that the people that live on that block are very vocal
with regard to opposition and things along those lines and parking. And those are the things that
we always had to deal with around there. The applicant bought the property in 2021.
The applicant bought the property in 2021. It doesn't create a hardship that she, you know, did not know. She looked at the property and thought that it was going to be something that would be great to put that. She didn't talk to the community about that at all.
it doesn't create a hardship
at this point.
And it also would have been great
if that petition that is being introduced
at the nth hour would have been circulated
because we would have been able to vet it.
But at this point, the councilwoman is going to join
with the RCO and oppose the granting of the variance.
Thank you.
Is there anyone else in the virtual audience?
I see the other hands, Chair.
So, Chair, can I just respond to the hardship argument?
Sure, yep.
If you look at the structure in its current state and in its previous state, it speaks nothing to RSA 5.
The amount of money my client would have to invest to essentially convert a more industrial commercial structure into residential would clearly outweigh any benefits she would be able to gain from it.
And that's essentially her hardship.
And that that from a legal standpoint, that is that is a real hardship.
Thank you. Hello. Do we want to plan and take a position?
It's a planning to take a position, certainly.
And that way, once we get the amended refusal back or the corrected refusal back, all we need is to vote on the matter.
Planning Commission.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Dan Powers with the Philadelphia City Planning Commission.
The comprehensive plan recommends no change to the residential single-family zoning at this location.
This appears to be a request for legalization of work done without the benefit of permits.
The use appears to be a longstanding auto repair business.
The variance for parking in the required front, side, and rear yards is characteristic of this type of use.
The City Planning Commission recommends that the board grant the proposed variances for personal vehicle repair and for parking in the required front, side, and rear yards,
but to deny the variance for fence height and opacity.
Thank you.
Hillary, are we going to, we'll close this except, how do we want to word that?
Yes, we will close the record except for receipt of an updated refusal.
We are now closing the record except for an updated refusal.
Thank you, Mr. Nockamson.
Thank you.
Have a great day.
All right.
Number 10, MI 2024, 000925701 Cathedral Road, Brett Feldman is the attorney, letter of support from Councilman Jones, letter of unanimous non-opposition received from the Upper Roxburgh Civic Association.
Brett Feldman, please raise your virtual hand.
He's coming back in as a panelist now, Chair.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Feldman, you've already been sworn. Just state your name for the record.
Yes, again, Brett Feldman.
Could you identify your client in relationship to the property?
Yes, I represent the applicant, property owner, Federal Realty.
um uh and or associates and our vice chair has a few questions
good afternoon council do you agree to waive the re refusal or stipulate towards accuracy
i do have you emailed in all the required documents and exhibits that is needed to
proceed with this case five days in advance of this hearing i have thank you council please
proceed and show your screen. Great. Can everyone see my screen? We can. Okay. And I'd also like to
ask that Adam Hendricks, on behalf of the owner-applicant, be promoted. Marianne McCallick
from Bowler Engineer be promoted. And Amanda Albano from Bowler Engineer also be promoted.
Well, are you going to present or are you going to let them present? I'm going to present. I'm
going to present. I just wanted to make sure and keep it moving as fast as possible for the board's
benefit. So again, good afternoon, Brett Feldman. I represent the owner applicant. This is an
application for a new full service supermarket within an existing shopping center. This is the
Andorra Shopping Center. And I guess to be accurate, what we're seeking is there is a
Currently, there is a vacant, much smaller supermarket that left the shopping center a couple of months ago, and we are seeking approval for a new full service.
And we are seeking approval for a new full-service, state-of-the-art grocer in that tenant space area, as well as in some expanded areas within the shopping center in the rear.
So that is really kind of the crux of the case here.
We've passed up exhibits and slides 1 through 55, which I'd ask to be incorporated into the record.
Chief among those, we have our zoning refusal, which we'll get to.
but this is a fully code compliant application. It is a shopping center. We are seeking approvals for
a expanded grocery store supermarket, which is allowed in the district. We have a strong letter
of support from the district council person. As the chair said, a unanimous letter of non-opposition
from the RCO. And then we've got some renderings to give you a sense of what this is going to look
like. And then in slides 22 through 30, we've got a whole bunch of environmental URSA stormwater
management plans. You already heard a steep slope case, but that's the only relief we're seeking
today is regarding steep slope. I mentioned our three other witnesses that I'll be calling
shortly. So this is the refusal. Again, the application is fully code compliant for a
new grocer within the shopping center. The only relief that we need is for steep slope
in the rear, and I'll explain that. But essentially, we, in order to make this project
viable, in order to bring to the community a full-service grocer with all the modern bells
and whistles in a supermarket, fresh produce and fresh fruit and fish and all those areas,
we needed to go from currently the departed tenant was about 24,000 feet. And when we went
into the marketplace for a new full-service grocer to bring to this neighborhood, to bring to this
community, to bring to this council district, we were told very clearly in the market that we were
going to need at a minimum about 49,000 or 50,000 square foot. And that was still rather small
compared to most of the suburban locations that you see, the new suburban supermarkets.
Here's our letter of support from the council person.
We started this process with a council person, geez, probably over a year ago, and they've
been very helpful in navigating through the process.
This is our letter of unanimous non-opposition from the community group.
And here's, let's just get to the property.
This is the Endora Shopping Center, CA2 here.
It is surrounded on the three sides by Henry Avenue, Port Royal, and Cathedral.
this is what it looks like from the air and this is probably the best way to understand what we're
doing the shopping center is uh is in outlined in the blue the most the the directly impacted
part of the shopping center is in the red and if you look here there's the white that's where the
that's where the now vacant uh supermarket was located here in the white uh and then to the
right here there were some smaller um some smaller tenant spaces that we would be looking to um
expand into and then we need to expand into the rear along kind of this outline of the red
which gets us closer to the steep slope here in the rear where these where these trees are
so we needed to in order to have all the new um meet the landscaping requirements in order to
meet the stormwater management in order to have enough square footage for the grocery
in order to have the loading, the unloading, the truck turning
to meet the streets department requirements, the water department.
We needed to move back slightly into this steep slope area where the green is
and extend an existing retaining wall.
There's already a retaining wall back here.
So a lot of this expansion into the slopes already happened,
but we need to, in this particular area, expand the retaining wall back into here
in order to make this project viable for all those different reasons that I explained.
Here is the shopping center, just some of the work that we've done. This was what we call phase one.
This was an investment in order to upgrade the offerings. These were called the small shops.
We brought in some new tenants. We updated and modernized the facades, and this was done over the past couple of years.
And as we finish this phase, and this is what it looks like now, we got five below, we got TJ Maxx, we got Chipotle, new facades, modern, new signage.
But as we finish this first phase, it became very clear that to have a shopping center that served the neighborhood and didn't have people leaving the city, because we're right at the border, basically, leaving it to go into Plymouth meeting, we needed a full service supermarket here.
We had conversations with that existing tenant. This is where the supermarket was right here in this space here, about modernizing, about reinvesting, and about how to make it a first full-service supermarket.
and about how to make it a first full-service supermarket.
They weren't interested in staying and renewing their lease
and advised that they would be leaving,
which then took us into the marketplace to find a new grocer
that we could work with and redevelop this portion of the shopping center.
So that's what it kind of looks like now with an empty grocery.
um here is uh what the area the proposed grocer would be again demolishing the box that has
that did have the former uh market in there uh and then expanding demolishing some of these
there's four or five stores over here demolishing those as well uh and then that would give us
additional width along the front but that still didn't get us near that 50 000 um threshold so
we have worked with probably for what a year and a half now with bowler engineering um i know
bowler has testified in front of this board uh numerous times uh in order to how do we deal with
and how do we expand in the rear meet all the environmental requirements the water department
the steep slope requirements streets department requirements um and and that's what we did and
here's here's what it looks like in the rear here is here's the envelope now over here of the grocer
and then the slope here in the rear.
So we're going to be expanding this out.
When you expand that out and you widen along the front,
you get right around 49,000 square feet
plus the mezzanine that's in the supermarket.
But we do need to expand this retaining wall
that you see here on the top
and actually in the bottom too
into this area where the light green shading is shown
to make the truck turning
and the loading and the unloading work
for the grocer, for the supermarket, and as well as for
water department and streets and operational. This is what
we believe, this is the renderings
of what the new grocer would look like. 45,000
square feet, plus a mezzanine that would have a rooftop
cafe, indoor-outdoor, a new amenity for the
neighborhood where people could meet, people could congregate, which
operated by a very well-known international coffee purveyor, coffee operator.
That's what it would look like from the front.
This is what it would look like from the corner of looking into the shopping center.
You know, again, here is what we're looking to do.
National grocer, mezzanine, full-service market, and really complement some of the new tenants
to TJ Maxx and the Five Below.
So as part of the new stormwater management, we've got increased stormwater management
that we can talk about briefly in the rear.
We had to meet the city planning landscaping requirements.
We've got new landscaping throughout the center.
And it's really just an exciting shopping center.
Again, this is the view from the front.
And then let me just get you to the rear of the center here.
This is the view from the rear. That's showing this expanded retaining wall running along the rear where the supermarket would be, which was the absolute minimum impact into that steep slope to allow these turning radiuses and the loading and the unloading here.
But that's that's kind of how it would look when we're when we're when we're completed.
And then really, in summary, 50,000 square foot market up from the existing 25.
With a mezzanine with new trees and new shrubs, I'm going to now just briefly ask.
And if the board doesn't have any questions, briefly ask Adam Hendricks be promoted to a panelist.
He is the development manager for Federal Realty and Dora Associates.
He's coming back in as a panelist, Chair.
Great.
Okay, thank you.
Sir, could you please state your name and spell for the stenographer?
I'm Andrews with Federal Realty.
Yeah. Could you spell your name for the stenographer, please?
Absolutely. First name Adam, A-D-A-M. Last name Hendricks, H-E-N-D-R-I-C-K-S.
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth?
Please proceed, counsel.
Great. Mr. Hendricks, can you again just reiterate your role and capacity with the owner-operator of the shopping center?
Absolutely. I represent the owner-operator of the shopping center, Andorra.
Absolutely. I represent the owner-operator of the shopping center, Andorra Associates Federal Realty, OPLP. I'm the development manager overseeing the continuing improvements at the shopping center.
And in that role, you have authorization to speak on behalf of the owner-operator?
And you've heard my testimony?
I have.
And do you find it true and accurate?
And would you adopt it as your own?
I will.
Great. And Adam, I know you've been living this project for two years. Is there anything further that anything big further that I missed as far as the necessity of the steep slope variance or the need for the zoning relief that we're seeking today?
I don't think anything was missed. I would just reiterate that. We've worked through the ongoing design of the proposed grocer with the councilman, with the RCO. Obviously, we're familiar with our tenants.
It became clear that once the previous grocer vacated on their own accord, that it would be in the best interest of the community to bring back another full service grocer.
As you indicated, when we went to market, it became very clear to us that we needed to provide at least a 45,000 to 50,000 square foot footprint in order for a full service grocer to be able to successfully operate at this shopping center.