The former Charles Cleaners laundromat at 815 W. Main St. in Lansdale was demolished in December 2015. Photo by Media News Group.
Plans in works for site on 800 block of West Main
A long-vacant property on Main Street could have a new look soon.
Borough council heard an update this month on plans for 817 W. Main St., and when the council could learn more about a new proposal for the site.
“You may know it as the vacant lot next door to ‘The Main Freeze’ ice cream store,” Director of Community Development Jason Van Dame said. “He’s looking to build a mixed-use development, commercial on the first floor with residential units above.”
Located between the ice cream shop at 813 West Main and the former Oasis restaurant at 821, the property at 817 is listed as just over 15,000 square feet, with 90 frontage feet on Main, and was sold in July 2023 to Keystone Management Investment LLC, according to Montgomery County property records; a prior sale in 2013 transferred the property to an Anytime Laundry Inc. from an 817 W. Main Street LLC, which had acquired the property in a 2005 sale from Charles Biehn, the longtime owner of Charles Cleaners laundromat just next door at 815 West Main that was demolished in 2015.
An online listing for the property gives more details, saying the site is fully paved, extends from Main Street to Mill Street, and “architectural plans are available for a multifamily and retail commercial property.” Sketch plans uploaded with that listing depict a three-story building with windows surrounding a first-floor entrance, two floors of windows above, and a rear entrance meant to level the slight slope of the property.
Van Dame told the council’s code committee on June 5 that there has been an application to the borough’s zoning hearing board to be heard on June 18, with a possible land development plan submission to follow, depending on what the zoning board allows.
“He is looking for several items of relief for the project, including maximum height of the structure, reduced number of off-street parking spaces, relief for parking within a common area, and within the ten-foot buffer from the adjacent property line,” he said.
“It’s a pretty ambitious project, so we’ll see what the zoning hearing board determines there,” Van Dame said.
Resident Carole Farrell asked for specifics on what height the applicant was seeking, and Van Dame said the latest plan calls for a total height of 42 feet in an area where a maximum of 40 feet is allowed by code. Resident Alex Strickler asked what Van Dame thought the odds were that the applicant could develop the project, “or are we going to be stuck with an empty lot?” and Van Dame said that was a question he couldn’t answer, but would give updates in future code committee meetings.
Lansdale’s borough council next meets at 7 p.m. on June 20, and the code committee next meets at 7:30 p.m. on July 3, both at the borough municipal building, 1 Vine St. For more information visit www.Lansdale.org.
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