Conshy Planning Commission OKs Washington Street Project

By Mischa Arnosky

The Conshohocken Planning Commission on Tuesday night approved the conditional use application for a residential development slated for the 400 block of Washington Street.

The proposed development sits on two parcels and in two municipalities, Conshohocken and Whitemarsh. The owners of the parcels are two subsidiaries of O’Neill Properties — 401 Washington Street Associates, LP and Washington Street Associates 3, LP.  According to O’Neill Properties attorney Ed Campbell, his clients are looking to build a “residential development consistent with the residential development that is already there.”

It will consist of four buildings and will be multi-family, he said. 

“O’Neill has owned and controlled the property for about 12 years,” Campbell said after the meeting. “He was the first person to really invest in the Conshohocken waterfront. He built Millennium 1, 2, and 3, he built Riverwalk [and] he built Londonbury.”

The site, near the corner of Cherry Street, is currently fenced off and is overgrown with weeds; there is also a building on the site, which will be razed. Some of the challenges of developing the property include its proximity to the river, and the fact that the soil is contaminated from previous uses.

Campbell, speaking to the planning commission, said the development of the site will not adversely affect the floodplain, and added that the water management of the site will be “slightly improved” after development. (There was a lot of talk of placing  “rain gardens” on the site, which are shallow depressions filled with plants that absorb water. Also, all of the fixtures and utilities in the proposed buildings, including the elevators, will be waterproof.)  

As for the contamination, Campbell said the site was formerly home to a heavy manufacturing company and a battery factory. 

“[The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection] has approved a work plan for the site,” Campbell said. “There is absolutely some residual material in the soil that needs to be managed and the way DEP is proposing to manage it is to cap it, which is a very common way to manage low-level contaminants … It’s not a superfund site. I’m not saying it’s not contaminated, but they’re very easily managed and O’Neill has a long reputation of managing much worse sites than this.”

An engineer for O’Neill said during the meeting that the contaminant in the soil on the site is primarily lead and that the building on the site is not contaminated.

Land development plans will likely be submitted to the borough on Friday and borough council will hear the application in about 10 days.