August 12, 2004 Issue                                       

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©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

CHCA committees okay Bowman project
by KATIE WORRALL

Bowman Properties plans adaptive reuse of this 1890s building

Bowman Properties Ltd.’s plans for adaptive re-use of 8401-03 Germantown Ave. and mixed residential/retail use at 3-9 E. Gravers Lane received unanimous support from the Chestnut Hill Community Association’s Land Use Planning & Zoning Committee on August 5, and from the CHCA Aesthetics Committee the next morning.

Plans call for the demolition of a one-story colonial-style addition that was built on Gravers Lane in 1964, and the erection of three retail locations and two bi-level condominium units. Plans include three terraces on the second and third levels, two accessory parking spaces and a six-foot high wall on Gravers Lane that is designed to block the view of the cars from Gravers Lane. Bowman Properties Ltd. has been working on the project for two years, the firm’s general managing partner, Richard Snowden, told committee members at both meetings.

Initial plans were designed by Chestnut Hill architects Wendy Kern and Stanley Runyan with the hope that the city of Philadelphia Zoning Board of Adjustment would not require any variances for the project, Snowden said. The Philadelphia Department of License and Inspection gave those plans three refusals (and therefore necessitating variances), sending Bowman Properties and the architects back to the drawing board.

L & I gave the current plans — also designed by Kern and Runyan — five refusals, which are the impetus for the project to be considered by the CHCA before a ZBA hearing that has not yet been scheduled. L&I gave the project zoning refusals because the building would be subdivided into separate units, which are not interconnected by a common entranceway to other floors or units, according to the department’s notice. Variances are needed for legalizing the area and width of an existing inner court between 8403 Germantown Ave. and 8405 Germantown Ave. and for a fence wall in a setback from Gravers Lane. The use was refused by L&I because only one principal structure or use shall be permitted on a lot and more than three decks in the side yards are not permitted in the district, the L&I notice states.

Snowden told the Aesthetics Committee that that the inner courtyard was formed when an extension was built onto 8405 Germantown Ave. The space is inaccessible and Snowden has not been there.

While designing the addition, the architects looked at the architecture of residences on Gravers Lane and decided to design a building based on the gambrel (Dutch Colonial) effect of those houses, but not to mimic it, Runyan said at the LUPZ meeting.

The building at the corner, like others on the block, was built in the 1890s in Queen Anne style architecture with cross-gambreled roof and gabled dormers, according to the CHCA’s Development Review Committee application. The building is considered an historic structure that contributes to the Chestnut Hill National Historical District.

The building, which was built as a residence and used as retail space in recent decades (Kay’s Luncheonette, Serendipity and Manner & Knoll), grew over the years. The addition built in 1964 fails as retail space because the shop windows are too shadowy, Snowden said.

The square footage of the retail space is flexible so that it could be leased to one but preferably two or three tenants, Snowden said, noting that the square footage is within the 4,000-square-foot limitation (or “overlay” as it is called in zoning parlance) that was approved by City Council. Marie Collette, who sells hand-painted furniture in a portion of 8403 Germantown Ave., will relocate to a retail space on Gravers Lane, he said.

The two condominiums each measure 2,500 square feet and are intended to be used as one residence, but could be used as two, Snowden said. The condominium will include two staircases, library, three terraces, kitchen, dining room and five bedrooms. If it divided into two residences, the dining room would be turned into a family room/kitchen. There would be three bedrooms in the back unit and two in the front.

“I believe in living on Germantown Avenue. There are 1,000 apartments on Germantown Avenue. We’ve spent 18 years renovating many of them. I think that the next wave of development is upgrading the housing stock. My belief is that people will want residential units on Germantown Avenue as nice as the rest of Chestnut Hill,” Snowden told the LUPZ members.

“This puts people in our town all the time as Chestnut Hill competes with malls. Why not cater to them? They could walk downstairs and buy something,” he said.

The two-car garage for the residents upstairs is oversize and has room for trashcans and a workshop, he said. There will be a full basement below the rest of the building.

Snowden told the LUPZ members that Bowman Properties had complied with both the Community Association and the Zoning Board of Adjustment. Ten to 12 neighbors attended a meeting at Snowden’s house on August 3 where there was a “spirited conversation,” he said. Neighbors living as far away from the property as the firehouse at Highland Avenue and Shawnee Street and John Story Jenks School, Germantown and Southampton Avenues were invited to the meeting.

Jim Dunn, a resident of the unit block of East Gravers Lane, said that parking concerns were discussed. With 11 parking spaces and more than 11 residents’ cars on the block, there was concern about construction workers also parking on the street. Dunn quoted Snowden at LUPZ — and Snowden said himself at the Aesthetics Committee meeting — that he would work something out with the Chestnut Hill Parking Foundation for the construction workers to park on lot four, which is entered from East Highland Avenue.

Kate Cassidy, a Gravers Lane neighbor, said that she was concerned about the possibility of a restaurant being located in the retail space. Snowden told LUPZ that the property is zoned C-2, which allows restaurants, but that as long as he lives upstairs, there would not be a restaurant. However, he does not want to make prohibition of a restaurant part of the zoning variance.

At the LUPZ meeting, committee member Elizabeth Masters made a motion to support Richard Snowden and Bowman Properties’ plans for 8401-03 Germantown Ave. for the demolition of the 1964 addition, for the new addition per plans presented, including garage and courtyard parking. The committee voted in favor of the motion with committee member Jean McCoubrey recusing herself because she reviewed the refusals in the absence of Wendy Kern. (McCoubrey works for Stanley Runyan & Associates.)

After the vote, committee member Larry McEwen asked what the time frame would be. Snowden replied that project would take about a year, with the demolition of the 1964 addition taking place first. Noting that Bowman Properties’ renovation of the Under the Blue Moon building (corner of Germantown and Abington avenues) “dragged on,” McEwen asked Snowden for an end date. Snowden replied that that building appeared unfinished because there is no first floor tenant. Fourteen apartments in the building have been leased for a long time, he said. Asked by Cassidy if an end date is part of zoning, Snowden said that if it were, he would not build it.

In his presentation to the Aesthetics Committee on August 6, Snowden said that the first floor would be built with schist and stucco and the upper floors made of shingle in a style similar to those at Anglecot, the condominiums at Evergreen and Prospect avenues, that were Bowman Properties’ first project in Chestnut Hill. The section on Gravers Lane that will be stucco has been stucco for a long time, Snowden said.

The major problems with the project, he said, are the setbacks that are now eight feet. C-2 allows buildings to be built to the property line, but because there are R-5 zoned properties in the same block, the C-2 property must conform to the R-5 zoning, Snowden explained, noting that that was not the case in the 1930s when the corner building was made into a store, but was in the 1960s when the retail addition was built on Gravers Lane.

In the new design, the setbacks on Gravers Lane will be zero (built to the property line) in some places and three feet in others, McCoubrey told the Local.

Asked by Aesthetics Committee member Harriet Palmer about lighting on the terraces, Snowden said the lighting would be indirect. Asked by Masters, chairperson of the Aesthetics Committee, about lighting of the garage, Snowden said that that lighting would be residential scale and that he is considering motion sensor lighting for the adjacent alley.

Asked by committee member Patricia Cove about landscaping, Snowden said that he would plant street trees — the species of which will be recommended by CHCA Street Trees Committee chair Carol Franklin— and plantings such as pyrocantha that are successful in urban areas. He plans to paint the shingles a dark brown color similar to those at Anglecot.

The project will be reviewed by the Development Review Committee at its meeting on Tuesday, August 17, and voted on by the board on Thursday, August 19. Both meetings will be conducted at Hiram Lodge, 8427 Germantown Ave., at 7:30 p.m.

A report on the project will be given at the Chestnut Hill Historical Society board of directors’ meeting on Monday, August 23. The society’s historic district advisory committee does not expect to review plans, according to Bill Washburn, who chairs that committee and is co-chair of LUPZ.