New Plans Afoot For Former Pike Restaurant

A Conditional Use Hearing was held during the August 28 Lower Gwynedd Township Board of Supervisors meeting for Nidus, Inc., the property owners for the former Pike Restaurant in the Spring House section of the township.

The owners of the property want to increase the impervious coverage on the site by building a 10,500 square foot, one story building in the rear of the property for a daycare center.

Neil Stein, who represented the property owner, said the project has been through a number of redesigns.

However, he said there will be two specific uses for the property: an adaptive reuse of the former Pike Restaurant and the daycare facility that will be built in the rear of the property with a play area adjacent to the property.

The Pike Restaurant will be split into three equal business spaces – one large enough to be used for restaurant space and the other two for retail. However, all three can be used for retail use.

Robert Blue, Jr., a civil engineer on the project, said that the former Pike Restaurant is composed of a stone building in the center and multiple additions, all of which are in various states of disrepair.

Blue said as the restaurant is renovated, parking spaces that are currently in the front of the building will be removed and landscaping and green space will be added in its place.

However, the township solicitor, James Garrity, said the hearing on Tuesday was only for the conditional use of the day care and land development plans will be submitted at a later date.

There will be 33 spaces reserved for the day care center out of a total of 101 spaces at the site.

He added that currently there currently is no storm water management system on the site, but a storm water management system across the property will be added so that there will not be additional storm water run off to adjacent properties.

Peter Lazor, the architect on the project, said the plan is to keep the current “footprint” of the former Pike Restaurant, but the plan is replace the roof, the exterior walls, and add new details.

Lazor said that he is only the architect on the Pike Restaurant project and is hands off on the day care center. He said the design of the Pike Restaurant was modeled after the day care center’s protype design.

Eric Mountz, a professional engineer with Traffic Planning and Design, said a parking study for the property showed that the 101 spaces satisfies both ITE manual standards, which calls for 77 spaces for the uses on the property, and the number of spaces satisfies the Lower Gwynedd requirements.

Lower Gwynedd Board of Supervisors will render a decision on the conditional use with 30 days.