Borough Zoners Approve

NSB Redevelopment Project

By Andrew Gorosko

The Borough Zoning Commission has approved Newtown Savings Bank’s plans for the redevelopment of its Main Street property, involving the demolition of the former Newtown Congregational Church’s adjacent church house and its replacement with a new bank office building in a similar architectural style.

The borough zoners unanimously approved the bank’s redevelopment plans at a January 21 session. Commission members approved the project under the terms of their “504.E review process,” which focuses on the traffic and parking aspects of such a project.

According to architectural plans submitted to the commission, the bank would replace the existing 15,216-square-foot former church house with a new 16,000-square-foot office building constructed in a similar architectural style. The church house was built in 1956.

The Congregational Church, which sold the church house to the bank in 1996, has been constructing an addition to its property on West Street, to replace the Main Street church house. The bank also bought a former parsonage from the church, which it later demolished and rebuilt in a similar architectural style.

The bank received many zoning variances from the Borough Zoning Board of Appeals in the mid- 1990s in connection with its long-term bank redevelopment project.

The bank project also includes the construction of a 4,820-square-foot bank addition. Currently the 17,770-square-foot bank and adjacent church house contain a total 32,986 square feet of space. When the redevelopment project is complete, possibly by the end of 2005, the site would contain an overall 38,590 square feet of enclosed space, resulting in a net addition of 5,604 square feet of enclosed area on the site, according to the architectural plans.

As part of the project, the bank at 39-41 Main Street would reconfigure the traffic flow on its 4.4-acre property. Its northern driveway would serve only as an entrance. Its southern driveway would serve only as an exit. Also, the bank’s drive-through teller windows on the site would be relocated.

Under the plans, the new office building to be constructed to replace the church house would be located closer to the bank than is the existing church house. The church house is located behind the bank.

Bank Chairman John Martocci told Borough Zoning Commission members that the bank has grown considerably during the past decade. The organization now employs 142 people in seven towns, he said.

The new bank office building will contain office space, training facilities, meeting rooms, and a community room, he said. “The building is nicely designed. It’s in keeping with the way we like things… We’ve tried to design it with our neighbors in mind,” he said.

As part of the project, the bank would create a gated vehicle passageway at the northwestern corner of the bank’s parking lot to allow Newtown Hook and Ladder fire trucks to travel from the parking lot behind Edmond Town Hall into the bank parking lot to exit onto Main Street, when necessary. The firehouse faces the rear parking lot of Edmond Town Hall, a situation that sometimes makes it difficult for fire trucks to reach Main Street due to parking lot congestion.

Also, the bank has reached an agreement with the Edmond Town Hall Board of Managers to allow bank workers to park in the westernmost parking lot behind Edmond Town Hall.

Architect Robert Mitchell of Mitchell Architectural Group told the borough zoners the redevelopment project has been designed to visually fit into the architecture of Main Street. The bank has complied with the design requests of the Borough Historic District, he said. Construction is expected to take 18 months. The bank will remain open during construction.

Borough Zoning Commission members posed various questions about nighttime illumination at the site, urging that steps be taken to minimize glare.

Commission member Lucy Sullivan questioned the wisdom of allowing a vehicle cut-through to be created to allow fire trucks to travel into the bank parking lot.

Commission attorney Donald Mitchell said that having such a cut-through would make for overall safer traffic flow than now exists in the area.

The bank is expected to provide the borough zoners with certain construction details about the project, including technical information on nighttime illumination, compressor noise, and the agreement that would allow bank workers to park in the westernmost parking behind Edmond Town Hall.