May 8, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

LUPZ approves plans for Treehouse Play Café
by Kristin Pazulski

Plans for the demolition and reconstruction of the building at 8524 Germantown Ave., which will house the proposed Treehouse Play Café, were approved with some provisions on May 1 by the Chestnut Hill Community Association’s Land Use Planning and Zoning Committee.

The LUPZ approved a three-story structure — rejecting earlier plans for four stories — to be built at the former Color Me Mine location, with the requirement that Sanjiv Jain, the property owner, bring information to the next LUPZ meeting that includes:

• the name of the owner of the alley behind the property,

• a spatial massing and structure analysis of the new building,

• more detailed plans and drawings of the new building, such as building materials and mechanical equipment.

The LUPZ also voted to support the requested use variance for a café with a play space serving food, coffee and alcohol, pending the receipt of a liquor license, which will be processed by the state Liquor Control Board.

The Play Café — because it plans to serve alcohol in a play space for children and because the current building will be demolished — drew more than 30 people to the typically quiet LUPZ meeting.

Jain presented plans for the café, which have been changing throughout the CHCA community approval process.

In October, the café was presented to LUPZ as a four-story remodeling of the structure. Before that meeting, plans for a three-story structure were submitted to the CHCA.

When Jain and Rachel Williams, the café’s business owner and tenant of the property, were asked in October to make adjustments to the reconstruction plans, Jain decided instead to build an entirely new building, four-stories high, following the LEED standards for environmentally friendly building.

At Thursday’s meeting, the proposed fourth floor was rejected by the committee.

Larry McEwen, a member of LUPZ and also a neighbor of the building, said the fourth floor was just too much.

“I appreciate the renderings, but I find that even with the story set back … it is clearly out of scale,” he said, referring to the drawings Jain presented.

Many of the complaints about the project focused on the scale of the building, which will also occupy 100 percent of the property’s footprint.

Eric Spaeth verbalized the concern: “It looks like a project that belongs somewhere else.”

“The question is not is it a good use that we need in the community, it is, is this the right place for this use?” Spaeth said. “It’s a big architectural sacrifice. It just doesn’t seem to belong there.”

Ellen Glendinning, a managing agent for the building that houses Prudential Fox & Roach Realtors behind 8524 Germantown Ave., said she was afraid of the precedent set by a full-coverage, four-story building on that block, since most of the buildings are two stories high.

“How many other property owners are going to do something?” she asked. “What’s the hardship other than your tenant’s hardship?”

Jain said the hardship had to do with the business’ survival, which would be “strained” without the fourth floor, and therefore the property needed to be adjusted for that. 

“We want to be sure [the business] can survive because it’s a new business,” he said. “This is what’s needed for the business to work.”

Later in the meeting, however, a member of the LUPZ committee asked Williams directly if her business could survive without the fourth floor, to which she said “yes,” but added that the “extra floor” would make her business plan “more comfortable.”

When the decision was made by the committee to have the building developed as a three-story structure following zoning guidelines for a 35-foot maximum height, Peter Poretta of Lighthouse Architecture, the building’s shell architect, argued that it would be difficult to create the building under 35 feet with the high ceilings and the necessary mechanics. Committee member McEwen, also an architect, responded that it was part of their job to figure out how to do it.

Hill resident and 9th Ward Democratic Committee leader John O’Connell and others wanted to be sure that the demolition and rebuilding would be safe and not block the Avenue’s pedestrian and automobile traffic.

Jason Manning, who works for the architecture firm, Metcalfe Architecture and Design, the café’s interior designer, said construction access would be focused on the rear, where deliveries would also be made once the café is in operation. The impact on the Avenue would be as light as possible, he said, and November and December holiday traffic would not be interrupted.

The other issue, which Tom Hemphill, a neighbor and CHCA board member, referred to as the “big, heavy elephant in the room,” was the liquor license.

Attendees representing both sides — those supporting the play café with a liquor license and those against mixing alcohol with a play area — were riled during the meeting.

Hemphill said he was worried about parents going to the café for dinner and a drink, then getting in the car and heading home.

Stephanie Nicholson, a mother who lives in Manayunk, said the idea is not to get drunk but to enjoy a drink with dinner in a setting where the children can play. 

She said when she and her husband go to dinner with their son and have a beer, “they [restaurant owners] assume, which I think is quite reasonable, that you care about your children and won’t drink in excess.”

During the meeting, it was clarified a few times that the play café would not be a bar — drinks will be ordered with prepared food at the checkout counter.

There would be small bars set up in private rooms for private parties, as necessary, Williams said.

Since some in the community are concerned that, if the café does not survive, the liquor license would remain available for another establishment, such as a bar or club, Jain and Williams made it clear that the license would follow the tenant and that Jain would not have one for the building.

Community member, Ed Feldman asked if Williams would consider limiting the alcohol served to beer and wine, with no hard liquor. She said she would be willing to limit the license if requested.

“If I had to, I can limit it to beer and wine,” she said, but added that she really did need to be able to serve hard alcohol to the private parties. Williams also said she could limit the time alcohol was served if it was necessary, but she didn’t think anyone was going to come in for a drink at 8 a.m.

Williams did not initiate the limitations herself at the meeting, and the LUPZ never mentioned any liquor limitations when it approved the use variance.

Ed Budnick, a former CHCA board member and community manager, asked if the sacrifice this project was causing was justified by the community’s support — or what he saw as a lack thereof.

“I don’t see that the community needs it,” he said. “If so, then it’s OK to sign on with the consequences that come with it.”

To this, Williams said that, although it was not included in the packet being passed around the room, there was a collection of letters — both solicited and unsolicited — written in by parents, mainly mothers, in the area who support the café. LUPZ chair Joyce Lenhardt confirmed this.

Parents supporting the project said the café would bring young mothers, who are bored with Germantown Avenue, to the business corridor.

“Chestnut Hill is tired, it needs new life,” said Liz Stroik, a mother from Erdenheim.

Anna Erkan, who lives in Chestnut Hill, said she was surprised by the hate being expressed in the community. She said she attends the Little Treehouse, a play space Williams is operating at the site while plans for the big Treehouse Café are proceeding, and that she goes to have her children meet other children.

“Trust me, we don’t go with the kids to the banks to play in them,” Erkan said at the meeting.

After discussing the project, committee members said Jain should be sure to bring more detailed and final plans to the next LUPZ meeting on June 5.

Community member Feldman called the plans “hazy” and, even though a motion was made to approve the plans pending more details, the LUPZ committee seemed to agree.

McEwen and others said they were tired of seeing evolutionary stages in the development of the project, and that they wanted specific, detailed plans.

“A lot of months have passed,” McEwen said, referring to the first meeting in October, “but I feel like a week and a half has passed, that’s how much development has occurred. What we want is a developer to come in and say this is what we want.”

Although there was a request for more details, neighbors seemed surprised that approval was being considered — and was later given — considering what they called the “haziness” of the plans.

Hemphill said he could not believe so few details were presented, and likely to be approved, by a community association committee that usually frets for hours about fencing height and the placement of trees.

Julie O’Connell, a neighbor, brought plans to the meeting from the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections file on the building. The plans were for a four-story structure with one elevator, while plans presented to the LUPZ had two elevators.

“It’s hard for us, as a neighborhood, to see what you’re asking permission for,” she said, referring to the difference in the file’s details compared to what was presented at the meeting.

Jain and Poretta explained that the L&I file contained old plans and that those presented to the LUPZ were the most recent. He said the permit applications would be made after community support was given, and that L&I would get updated plans after that.

When Feldman asked if, in the meantime, Jain would be applying for a demolition permit, Jain said he would not apply for the demolition permit until the entire community process was complete.

During the meeting, there were several times that LUPZ chair Lenhardt had to use her umbrella as a gavel to quiet the crowd.

One of those times occurred after Erkan brought up hate in the community and Jain brought out his cell phone, saying that someone had left racist voicemails that he offered to let the committee hear.

If all that was requested of Jain and Williams is presented at the June LUPZ meeting, and the committee is satisfied with the new plans, the project will still need to be presented to the CHCA Development and Review Committee and to the entire CHCA board for approval.

A zoning notice posted on 8524 Germantown Ave. indicated a hearing the first week in May addressing the variances discussed at the LUPZ meeting, but Jain said at the May 1 meeting that obviously the hearing was being continued since community support had not yet been obtained.