Dranoff gets to defend his Ardmore proposal
HARRISBURG - The latest effort by Ardmore homeowners to block a controversial mixed-use development off Lancaster Avenue was greeted skeptically in Commonwealth Court on Wednesday.
HARRISBURG - The latest effort by Ardmore homeowners to block a controversial mixed-use development off Lancaster Avenue was greeted skeptically in Commonwealth Court on Wednesday.
After a nearly three-hour hearing, Judge Dan Pellegrini allowed the developer, Dranoff Properties, to intervene as a party to the lawsuit and agreed to an expedited hearing for the defendants' objections.
The Save Ardmore Coalition has asked the court to block the commonwealth from issuing $10.5 million in Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program funds for the eight-story residential and retail tower that would replace Lower Merion's Cricket Avenue parking lot.
The coalition alleges it would be a misappropriation of funds because the legislature in 2007 approved $15 million in grants for "costs related to the redevelopment of the Ardmore train station."
When the township began envisioning the project nearly a decade ago, the plans involved replacing the train station and building a mixed-use development on the lot next door.
Since then, the scope of the project has changed several times, with $3.5 million going to rehabilitation of the train station, and $10.5 million going to the Cricket lot development across the street and one-tenth of a mile from the station.
The Dranoff project will add a few more parking spaces than the lot currently provides, but otherwise critics say it is not a true transit-oriented development.
Philip Browndeis, president of the Save Ardmore Coalition, said the legislature earmarked the RACP funds in 2007 for "the rehabilitation of the Ardmore train station, specifically to put up tiered parking. That, to this day, has never happened and isn't going to happen."
Named as defendants in the suit are all the agencies through which the RACP funding would flow - the governor's Office of the Budget, the Montgomery County Redevelopment Authority, and Lower Merion Township - but not Dranoff Properties or its subsidiary for this project, One Ardmore Associates.
Testifying at the hearing Wednesday, Carl Dranoff said he should have a right to defend a project on which he has spent millions planning, designing, permitting and staffing.
"We have people we've hired for this job standing in place treading water waiting for the project to begin," he said. "We have huge exposure, huge investment already that's growing every day."
Dranoff has said he was ready to break ground in December 2014 if not for the continuing petitions, lawsuits, and other efforts to delay or kill the project.
Homeowners, businesses, and neighborhood groups have been vocal in opposing the project, arguing that it is out of character with downtown Ardmore and doesn't merit public subsidies.
Dranoff said he has lined up the other $50 million from investors and lenders but that "the project can't be built without the [RACP] funds."
The coalition's petition was filed one week after adjacent business owners settled a lawsuit with the township and Dranoff to mitigate the impact of construction.
The judge said he could schedule the next hearing for Dec. 7 or have a visiting judge take over in November. And while he promised it would get a fair hearing and applauded the coalition for "keeping the process honest," Pellegrini sounded skeptical that the case would proceed beyond that.
"To be honest, I think we've spent 21/2 hours on issues that aren't going to be -," he said, not finishing the sentence.
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