Tram Tour Gets Green Light in Upper Providence

After an hours-long hearing and two executive sessions for what Solicitor Steve English called “potential litigation,” a museum in Upper Providence received conditional use approval Monday night.

Though the American Treasure Tour Web site claims “This is not a museum tour!” a zoning text amendment for just that came before the board of supervisors before the conditional use hearing. Representatives of the site asked the board to amend the code to allow for a museum in the zoning district.

The museum includes a nickelodeon room, with music makers, a car collection and a collection of animated toys. Gerald Frey, organizer of the tour, called it “an eclectic collection” and said he hopes to keep the collection together long-term. Each tour would be approximately 30 minutes, with an hour built in for loading and unloading buses. Prior to the meeting, supervisors were offered a tour through the facility.

The American Treasure Tour is located on the second floor of a large building on the 422 Business Center site, with an address at 122 Mill Road.

Due to code restrictions, no more than 49 people can be in the building at one time, including employees. Frey anticipates having three employees. If the capacity is set higher, it would be classified as an assembly use under the fire code and would be subject to more stringent regulations, according to Don Stiteler, director of fire and emergency services.

“There are many, many code issues that have to be rectified before one person can go in on a tour, let alone 49,” Township Manager George Waterman said.

According to Brad Macy, who works for the owner of the site, Audubon Land Development, buses would be the main way of getting visitors to the tour.

“We’re going to use buses as the primary source of getting people to and from the museum, and not cars,” Macy said.

Because of that, the proposed parking for the facility is 39 spaces, with three spots for buses. Rather than basing the number of spots on the total area of museum, which is 116,000-square feet, the calculations were done just using the area where a tram car would pass through the facility.

“We anticipate selling this to the motorcoach industry,” Frey said.

One of the issues with the idea is that when the percentage of square footage used for retail within the 422 Business Center hits 80 percent, the manufacturing uses would have to be eliminated from the site.

Right now, the site is zoned light manufacturing and industrial (M2), with an overlay of commercial regional shopping center (CRSC). Where the museum would fall was up for debate. Macy said that adding that 116,000-square feet to the CRSC would bring the site closer to the limit. Chairman Philip Barker asked what would happen to the museum after the conversion to eliminate manufacturing.

“I don’t think that crossing that threshold would require a conversion of the American Treasure museum,” English said.

Township Planning Consultant Geoff Grace said the 116,000-square foot structure was presented as a light manufacturing and industrial use, rather than in the CRSC overlay.

“In this instance it was written as an M2 use from what I recall,” Grace said. “Because of the square footage, it would have put them very close to the 80 percent, and Audubon Land Development’s not prepared to convert everything within the whole Oaks Mills area to CRSC.”

English said it would be a non-conforming use within the CRSC overlay, meaning that it wouldn’t need to be converted following the 80/20 target.

The conditional use application was approved unanimously with six conditions.

The 116,000-square feet, as a second-floor use, wouldn’t count anywhere—not in the M2 district or the CRSC. Additionally, all letters would have to be complied with, and Chairman Philip Barker included in the conditions a submission of traffic reports to the building and codes department on how many people went in and out of the facility.

Other conditions included a scale drawing showing the bus travel route and turning radii, an operations plan submitted to the codes department and a condition that all tours happen before 4 p.m. due to poor lighting conditions in the parking lot.