EASTON, Pa. — VM Development Group has been cleared to transform unused office space above a district court office into dozens of apartments after the city’s planning commission recommended approval of the plans Wednesday night.
Owner Mark Mulligan, who also serves as manager of 400 Northampton LLP, the applicant for the land development request, came to the planning commission meeting seeking an endorsement to convert office space in The National Building at Fourth and Northampton streets into apartments.
- The Easton Planning Commission endorsed VM Development Group's plan to transform former office space at 400 Northampton St. into living spaces
- Floors two through seven will feature one- and two-bedroom apartments, while a district court office will continue to occupy the first floor
- Parking was reduced to 32 spaces, raising concerns among the commission, though VM Development Group assured them spaces would remain available for tenants
Mulligan noted the building “did not work well as an office building, and works even less well in today’s current environment.”
A transformation into living space — 28 one-bedroom and four two-bedroom units located on floors two through seven, ranging from 473 to 1,025 square feet — could prove beneficial to the city, and the developer, as a whole.
“It’s partly because of COVID, partly just because office rents have not gained traction,” Mulligan said.
“We're starting by thinking, 'OK, this is an opportunity for us, too, to be one of the first people out the door, you know, modifying an existing office building, what would be considered a Class B office building into Class A residential.'”
“What we'll be laughing about is this will convert to apartments and there will be more people. It'll be just as many people working inside the building as before it was residential — they'll just be working and living [there], as opposed to working and then going to another place to live."VM Development Group owner Mark Mulligan
According to Mulligan, conversion of office space into residential space “is going to be a trend,” especially in major urban areas in dire need of affordable housing and an overabundance of unused offices.
Easton already has joined that move, with several apartment building projects completed or underway.
As rent per square foot for apartments has increased substantially over the past few years and rent for office space has stayed flat – in addition to maintenance costs increasing – converting the building could prove to be mutually beneficial for stay-at-home workers.
The shift toward a work-at-home economy might even produce an interesting increase in the number of individuals attending to business at 400 Northampton St., Mulligan said.
“What we'll be laughing about is this will convert to apartments and there will be more people. It'll be just as many people working inside the building as before it was residential — they'll just be working and living [there], as opposed to working and then going to another place to live,” Mulligan said.
According to Mulligan, the only issue that needed to be addressed with the plan involves a fire escape that leads to a balanced stairwell on the second floor. Mulligan said he had discussed the matter with Northampton County Court — which will remain on the first floor of the building for Magisterial District Court 03-2-05 — to help rectify the situation.
“They have agreed in principle, and we'll be signing the lease amendment for them to give them additional space in another part of the first floor for their file room, and we'll be able to lower the staircase all the way down to the first floor so that the two means of egress will be fully accessible all the way down,” Mulligan said, adding that the switch to a mixed-use building will actually reduce the parking count to 32 spaces, whereas the structure originally required between 60 and 70 spaces.
Is there a parking problem?
Nevertheless, the planning commission expressed concerns about parking, necessitating a bit of a back-and-forth with the members, Mulligan, and Director of Zoning Stephen Nowroski in order to clear the air.
“So if you look at Section 595-33 of the city's zoning ordinance, it tells you how many parking spaces you need, off-street parking spaces that are required for its existing use. But since the use and the building was constructed prior to the enactment of the zoning ordinance, it's essentially grandfathered in as an existing nonconformity. That existing nonconformity stays as long as he does not increase the parking demand,” Nowroski said.
Mulligan assured the commission that VM Development Group would provide parking for residents, as his business did with the Simon Silk Mill, which required 222 spots, though 400 were built.
“Currently, you know, there are many spots available. Worst-case scenario, the city says ‘You’ve got to move here to this [parking garage] deck,’ I might say, ‘You know what, I'll just take care of the parking because I'm over-parked or I'm under-parked at my deck at the Watermark, for instance. So I would negotiate that,” Mulligan said.
Though committee member Frank Pintabone seconded the motion to pass the measure, he did express a sense of concern for the future of the city due to already-prevalent parking issues.
“Just for the record, because I'm going to come back and look at this in a couple of years — Easton, we are causing ourselves a big problem, because parking is going to slap us in the face in five years,” Pintabone said.
Mulligan went on to note there are approximately 1,400 cities in the country that have abolished or reduced parking minimums, including Buffalo, New York, instead allowing the developers to decide how much off-street parking they would deem necessary for their properties.
“There's a significant trend nationwide that shows that downtowns actually thrive when you're not taking away viable land, and just paving it to park cars. In America, each car has eight parking spaces,” Nowroski said.
Following the commission's recommended approval, Mulligan explained he understood the confusion surrounding the parking issue, as it is steeped in grandfathered conditions for the structure.
“I'm reducing that parking requirement by about half, and because of that, the board cannot ask me to do anything. It's grandfathered.
"Now, what was explained to the board is that if I came back to them a year after I had enacted my apartment building, and I said ‘I want to build two new units,’ then they can make some requirements because now I'm giving them back my grandfathered parking spaces. If I try to increase them at any time, then they would be able to give me some requirements.”
