On the January 7th agenda for the Plymouth Township Planning Agency is the proposed conversion of the former DoubleTree Suites at 640 Fountain Road in Plymouth Meeting (Plymouth Township) into apartments. The property owner, Kingsbury Financial, closed the hotel in November 2025.

Kingsbury is seeking a special exception to convert the 253-unit hotel into 213 apartments. The planning agency will review the application (view) and has the opportunity to make a recommendation to the zoning hearing board, which will render the final decision.

This is the second major conversion to apartments sought in the township in recent years. Keystone Investment + Development successfully sought to amend the zoning code to permit, by conditional use, the conversion of existing office buildings to apartments within the Shopping Center Zoning District. A conversion of the office building adjacent to the Plymouth Meeting Mall is currently underway and will have 150 apartments.

The former DoubleTree is not within the Shopping Center Zoning District and is not an office building. It is located across Hickory Road from the Plymouth Meeting Mall and falls within the Planned Office Park Zoning District.

Hotels are an allowable use within the Planned Office Park Zoning District, and the application states that apartments are of the “same general character as a permitted use ” within the zoning district.” The specific argument from the application is as follows:

Section 3200.E provides that the Property may be used for a “Hotel”. The Code defines a “Hotel” as “a facility offering transient lodging accommodations to the general public and providing additional services such as restaurants, meeting rooms and recreational facilities.” As an all-suites facility, the Hotel Use has been characterized by extended-stays where guests reside for a period of time in a manner more consistent with a residence. The Code defines an “apartment” as a dwelling unit in an apartment house arranged, designed, used occupied, or intended to be used and occupied as a housekeeping unit.” An Apartment House is defined as “a multiple dwelling with common outside access. The Code defines a Multiple Dwelling as “a building not a single-family, duplex, twin, townhouse, triplex or quadraplex dwelling designed for and occupied primarily for dwelling purposes by three or more families living independently of one another.”

A similar argument was made in 2021, when PREIT, the owner of the majority of the Plymouth Meeting Mall property, sought to construct apartments at the mall (this is unrelated to Keystone’s apartments). The zoning hearing board denied that application.

The planning agency meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, January 7th, at 7:00 p.m. at the township building.

This application is also on the agenda for the zoning hearing board on January 19th. We will provide an update after the planning agency meeting on the outcome.