POTTSTOWN — The project looking to remake the long-derelict Levengood Daily site at Washington and Chestnut streets into a four-story apartment complex has received two key approvals.
On Oct. 29, the Pottstown Zoning Hearing Board granted the parking, apartment size and height variances needed for the project to move forward, and at Monday’s Pottstown Borough Council meeting, the project received a unanimous conditional use approval from council.
That means the next stage for Bucks County developers, New Britain-based Elan Shirman, who, with partner Andrew Maye, is to submit a site plan for review by borough staff and the Pottstown Planning Commission.
The developers have an agreement to buy the 16,800 square-foot property for $575,000 from Philadelphia-based JDL Property Management LLC, which purchased the property at a judicial sale in 2015 from Robert Sieracki for $20,000, according to the documents accompanying the zoning application.
Their plans for 504-512 Chestnut St. call for demolishing the dilapidated residence on the site and adding two floors to the remaining industrial buildings to make room for 24 apartments.
Those apartments would be between 750 to 900 square feet, which was one of the variances required, have central heat and air conditioning as well as steel appliances, hardwood floors and granite countertops, Shirman told the council in September.
Plans also call for putting a gym in the basement for residents and having a rooftop deck as well, he said.
The project, called the Dairy Foundry Apartments, generated an endorsement letter from the Pottstown Borough Council as well as the board of Pottstown Area Economic Development to the zoning hearing board, advocating for the variances.
In hearings both before the borough council and the zoning hearing board, the primary issue was parking. The plan calls for only 36 parking spaces for 24 apartments, and the borough’s zoning code calls for two parking spaces per dwelling unit.
The developer’s parking consultant told the council and the zoning board that 36 spaces would be enough, given that many apartment dwellers have only one vehicle.
Pottstown’s code now requires two parking places per dwelling unit, although it previously required only 1.5 spaces per unit, a standard that Shirman’s traffic consultant, John Carullo, said is standard around the nation, according to the Institute of Transportation Engineers’ latest set of recommendations.
The parking standards in Pottstown’s ordinance “are onerous for redevelopment projects like this,” attorney Mike Murray told the zoning board.
