During a June 7th meeting of Plymouth Township’s Council, Keystone Property Group made a presentation on a proposal to convert the vacant office building adjacent to the Plymouth Meeting Mall into an apartment building with no more than 150 units.

The presentation was made to gauge the council’s reaction to the proposal. Keystone is currently scheduled to go before the township’s zoning hearing board in July to seek a special exception to allow the use (apartments). The township’s solicitor pointed out that the council is currently opposing a proposal by PREIT to construct an apartment community with 503 units on the mall’s property (to replace the former Ikea building near the movie theater). PREIT’s proposal is currently being heard before the zoning hearing board and was most recently continued until August 3rd.

This led to a discussion as to whether Keystone would be open to discussing the proposal further with the township and delay its zoning hearing. The council could decide to work with the developer to amend the zoning code to allow the apartments which could come with a set of conditions. A representative of Keystone stated that they were open to these discussions.

During the presentation, a representative of Keystone offered the history of its buying the building and its attempts to secure an office tenant and redevelop it as a senior living facility. Both attempts failed and Keystone has only received interest from the apartment industry.

More to come.