PALMER TWP., Pa. — A hearing on converting an old Crayola office building will continue, after expert witnesses again testified Tuesday that housing is the only logical use for the structure.
The hearing for the building at 2025 Edgewood Ave., which began in February, will again come before the Palmer Township Zoning Hearing Board on March 4.
The delay accommodates further witnesses regarding the six variances needed to change the four interconnected structures into 94 apartments.
Tuesday’s experts largely focused on the need for office space in the area, fire safety for the existing building, and, predominantly, floodplain management regulations.
Ultimately, attorney John A. VanLuvanee, representing the project and developer Nat Hyman, aims to show that the existing building could serve practically no other function than as apartments.
Low demand for office space
VanLuvanee finished off his examination of Stephen Thode, a finance professor and director of integrated real estate at Lehigh University, who spoke on the low demand for office space in the region.
Under cross examination by township solicitor William Oetinger, Thode cited reports from CoStar and Colliers, both focusing upon real estate data for 2024.
The Lehigh Valley office market “is stagnant. And the long-term forecast is not for much improvement, both from the CoStar report and other reports. There's just no expectation that there's going to be office growth.”Stephen Thode, a finance professor and director of integrated real estate at Lehigh University
“Both of them show that overall demand is negative, that absorption has been negative for the course of the year, and it's not expected to recover into positive territory anytime soon,” Thode said.
Thode said the vacancy rate for “B space” offices — into which the property would fall — was at 28% in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Oetinger brought up a Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation report stating that total office vacancy was 7.2%.
Thode said he could not explain the discrepancy without further research.
Pressed further, he said the CoStar report indicated two office buildings totaling about 38,000 square feet had been completely leased, indicating an existing demand for property already zoned for it, as 2025 Edgewood Ave. is.
Oetinger later asked Thode if “the office market in the Lehigh Valley is dead, or is it just evolving?”
“It's stagnant," Thode said. "And the long-term forecast is not for much improvement, both from the CoStar report and other reports.
"There's just no expectation that there's going to be office growth.”
Thode later said anyone looking to build out the structure for office space would incur expenses on the property while taking in no income.
Fire hazards: Office vs. apartments
VanLuvanee called William Jenaway, owner of Public Safety Associates, a consulting firm that draws largely on his history in the insurance industry and as a firefighter and expert on the matter.
Jenaway said he had looked into the building and provided recommendations to the owner for fire safety measures for the proposed residential building.
“There are 10 items that I am recommending that the owner consider as part of this fire protection envelope to assure that it can provide state-of-the-art protection for residents of that building," Jenaway said.
"I would also say that if this were to be an office building, I would make the same 10 recommendations."
However, Jenaway advised limiting parking a bit to accommodate a response from a fire department to access suppression systems.
He also addressed “redundant systems” that would provide increased safety for tenants, including a fire alarm system that would signal the origin of a fire to a particular unit.
“The advantage of the addressable alarm system is twofold," he said. "Number one, the fire department knows where they're going on the way, because the... fire company is also going to get that information.
"And when they get there, they'll be able to verify that and immediately take action, and then to be able to almost triage the situation, determining that I only have to go to floor number one to start with, because that's where the affected unit is."
Oetinger questioned the potential risk of casualties if the building were residential versus commercial offices.
Jenaway said the amount of electric and electronic equipment found in an office “poses a different, yet potentially as frequent hazard.”
Floodplains and traffic
Architect John Lee of Phillips & Donovan questioned next, focused on the decision to have more studio apartments in the plan because of space issues.
Lee said he will be active in the process of the development, and no additional buildings or structures are intended on the property. That detail later would be cited in the argument for a floodplain variance.
“We did a very cursory review, and have found, I believe, that all of our exits are above the floodplain elevation that we have been given," Lee said.
"Except possibly the end one here, because the end one’s on a ramp on the extreme right-hand side, facing the building, looking towards the creek. I believe that right hand one might be slightly below."
Lee later said that would not violate a floodplain ordinance, as it ceases to be relevant outside the structure.
Traffic Planning & Design’s Ben Guthrie spoke on transportation planning and design services for the property.
He detailed proposed trip generation comparisons for the property as an office and as a residence.
For the office, Guthrie said, “over a 24-hour period, we would project a total of 996 trips.”
“That includes 144 trips during the weekday a.m. peak hour, and 142 trips during the weekday p.m. peak hour,” he said.
Asked about traffic if the property became a 94-unit apartment building, Guthrie said the figures fell to 427 weekday trips over a 24-hour period, with 30 weekday a.m. peak hour trips, and 37 weekday p.m. peak hour trips — substantially less than the office figures.
“My opinion is that the proposed use will generate less traffic from the previous use and will therefore have less of a traffic impact than the previous use,” Guthrie said.
Oetinger later raised questions about the potential impact multi-unit apartments could have on traffic, though Guthrie said calculations included “units of all sizes.”
'No impact'
Engineer Gregory Newell of Nave Newell Inc. spoke next, and said that according to plans, all the proposed apartment units would sit above the base flood elevation.
VanLuvanee said floodplain management regulations say there are non-conformities in adaptive reuse of a building. Essentially, if the building existed prior to the establishment of certain regulations, it would be subject to particular conditions, he said.
Newell said the cited two sections of the floodplain regulations do not apply, as “the apartment units are not in the floodplain,” and any renovations would not increase the size of the existing building.
Another regulation would be “very typical conditions that are placed on projects like this,” Newell said.
“I’m not aware of our clients having difficulty meeting those requirements,” he said, referencing construction materials intended for the floodplain area.
“There will be no impact in all the construction activities occurring there and above, so there will not be any impact to the floodplain elevation.”
